


Hey Baby, What's Your Sine?

by ziraseal



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Abby and Erin never fought, Chapter 13 is NSFW, Comedy, Confident!Erin, F/F, Flaming Bisexual!Erin, Holtzmann is the one who worked at Columbia, Professor!Holtz, Role Reversal, Shy!Holtzmann, Similar dialogue to the movie, ft. art by rootproxy, it's better than it sounds, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-17 10:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 44,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9319211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziraseal/pseuds/ziraseal
Summary: There's a universe out there where yellow goggles, an electrifying hairstyle, and a Screw-U necklace aren't belonging a certain engineer, who is trying her hardest to cozy up to her supervisors at Columbia University in order to get into CERN.And yet, in that same universe there's a woman with mousy, messy brown hair and kind eyes working at Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science who could write solve a complex equation in fifteen seconds, tops, and doesn't care what people say about her (even if it's the words "ghost girl").It's almost as if they swapped lives...





	1. Tweed Beret

 

                “My name is Ed Mulgrave, and I’m the senior historian at the Aldridge Mansion. I was just wondering if you could come in and take a look around— we think the place is haunted!”

                The woman straightened out her crisp maroon pantsuit and fiddled with the perfect bun pulling her hair back (not a strand out of place). She assumed her appearance gave off a no-nonsense attitude, but apparently she was mistaken and her façade had faulted to reveal the true, meek personality that she harbored. Ed Mulgrave saw through her like... well... a ghost.

                “What do you want me to do about it? I teach applied engineering.”

                “I read your paper— the one about paranormal apparitions appearing in sites of historical engineering accidents, I wanted to know if you could help me identify what is going on at the Mansion!” the elderly gentleman pleaded.

                Jillian adjusted her horn-rimmed glasses, not a smudge on their crystal-clear lenses, and sighed, “Look, that was for a cryptids class that I took as extra credits for graduating a few years ago. I went to the sight of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and did a little poking around for a class I didn’t even take seriously. If you want me to raise a nephew’s grade a few points or give you a perfect study guide for an upcoming exam, I can hook you up. But ghosts? No scientist believes in the paranormal.”

                “A class you didn’t even take seriously?” Mulgrave scoffed, flipping through the forty-five-page analysis that he’d printed out. “Ten of these pages are personally dedicated to an apparition you spent twenty-four hours watching through binoculars.”

                “Sir, I have a class to teach, a-and unless you are here to learn about Margaret Hamilton’s software design process for the Apollo missions, I would s-suggest you take your ghost business to the NYPL archives!” Jillian stammered, the slight hint of anger hiding in the back of her throat. “I don’t know how you even got ahold of that copy, I thought I rescinded the publication before graduating...”

                Ed deadpanned, “A website had it on PDF, I think I wrote the URL inside the report if you would like to check out the link.”

                “No thank you, Mr. Aldridge, I have a class to take care of. Have a good day.”

                Ed Mulgrave looked dejected, but set the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory report on Professor Holtzmann’s desk. As he made his way out the door, students began shuffling in for the nine-o-clock class. The doctor quickly stuffed the ghost analysis into her computer bag and began the lecture with a ruffled expression.

 

.               .               .

 

                “No. No, no, no, no!” Jillian whispered. “Who the hell are you?”

                She’d been scrolling through some blog called Ghost News which had a direct download to her paper— and just when she was performing well at Columbia! No one could see this, they would kill her for sure. Or worse, expel her from academia. Holtzmann ran through all the computer codes she’d memorized in college, trying to think of one that would override the website into allowing her to remove the link. But whoever had designed the website had paid good money for their firewall. Jillian nearly cried, but regained her posture and took a deep bre—

                “Dr. Holtzman,” a deep voice called from the doorway.

                Jillian looked up and, with a single stroke of her hand, shoved the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory report into her desk. Barely moving her fingers, she managed to tab out of the Ghost News blog as the Dean of Columbia University strolled into her office... she hated the way entitled men strutted like peacocks, but kept a pristine, ass-kissing smile on her face as she listened to him.           

                “We’re set to submit your CERN portfolio on Thursday,” Dr. Filmore smiled.         

                Jillian fiddled with the collar of her maroon pantsuit, “Oh, excellent.”

                “However, I saw that you have a recommendation from Rebecca Gorin at MIT. Their business reputation is not all that its worked up to be, and I would appreciate a more qualified science department for your CERN application.”

                “A. Better. Science. Than. MIT.”

                Filmore didn’t even register the stupidity of her statement, merely turning on his heel and walking away, “Yes. Oh, and about your clothes!”

                Dr. Holtzmann glanced down at her pantsuit, knowing full well what the other professors thought of the outfit, “What do you think?”

                “It’s...”

                “Too feminist for academia?”

                “Nevermind.”

                “No, what is it?!”

                “NEVERMIND!”

                Jillian turned back to her computer as soon as her superior had left, feeling as though she’d known less than when she’d first checked out the website. She wrote down an address for... Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science? That laughingstock? She gulped and grabbed her computer bag and the ghost report from her college days, hoping that she could figure out who these people were and if they could be reasoned with.

.               .               .

 

                They couldn’t be reasoned with. No sooner had Jillian walked through the doors that a woman wearing a huge helmet covered in electronics had instantly assumed she was the delivery boy and demanded her wonton soup. Then, when the actual delivery boy arrived, the helmet-clad woman gave him a tip to forcibly escort Jillian from the lab, claiming she was busy. A bit of a pathetic lab, to be perfectly frank, there wasn’t even a single machine up and running, just whiteboards everywhere covered in post-it notes.

                “You put up a paper I wrote when I was twenty-five without my permission!” Dr. Holtzmann whined, pulling away from Benny. “Do you have any idea what kind of pressure I’m under? I need to get this job at CERN, and if my peers find out about this paper, I’m toast!”

                “Ooooh, I have a job at CORN,” the woman in the strange helmet mocked.

                “Hey, take this seriously!”

                “Are you kidding me!”

                Jillian grew angrier by the second, “What!?”

                “I got one wonton! I got a tub of soup, and one split wonton! There’s not even any meat in there.”

                Was... was this woman for real? Jillian was standing here with her career on the line, and this Spaceballs-looking scientist was more concerned about broth than vocation. Jillian stood there with her mouth gaping and backed into a table... covered in papers. She glanced down to find equations at her hands and feet— thousands of them, but scrawled in perfect handwriting.

                She turned around and her eyes sparkled in wonder at the wall behind her— finally appreciating the whiteboards for what they were. Though absolutely unorganized, whomsoever these formulas belonged to was absolutely passionate about the math of the paranormal. For a moment, Jillian felt a little wistful for her stakeout nights at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, writing down observations about any little noise she heard.

                “Are you an eighty-nine-degree angle? Because you are acute-y.”

                Dr. Holtzmann froze up, her loafers pinching her toes as she turned on the spot. There was a woman sitting in the office chair to her right, whom she could have sworn was not there thirty seconds ago. This one was different than the lady with the helmet— she had messy brown hair kept at bay only by a tweed beret (she could make tweed look good???), was wearing a men’s flannel two sizes too large and a black skirt that was a little too short for a professor (not that Jillian meant any slut shaming, of course, but students did tend to stop noticing your lectures at a certain percentage of leg exposure). But what struck Jillian was the amount of pencils. She had one sticking out of every pocket, two tucked behind her right ear, and another pen sticking out of a notebook that this woman was clutching to her chest as she awaited a response to her pick-up line.

                “I-I’m sorry, who are you?”

                The woman with the tweed beret sighed and then instantly perked up again, “Ah well, it was worth a shot. Gilbert—  Taurus, part-time aquarium volunteer, _flaming_ bisexual, and absolutely thrilled to show you around the lab!”

                Helmet Woman, whom Gilbert called by the name of Abby, reappeared— though this time lacking the notable piece of equipment she’d been wearing upon Dr. Holtzmann’s embark into the lab. She slung an arm around Gilbert’s shoulders and mentioned something about the latter currently developing equations necessary for a reverse tractor beam. Gilbert made a little two-fingered gesture towards the closest whiteboard, prompting Jillian for a peek.

                And it made perfect sense; th-their calculations were absolutely spotless! Designs began swimming through Jillian’s head on how to build the tractor beam when Gilbert interrupted her train of thought.

                “Abby! We should let her listen to the EVP!”

                “W-what’s an EVP?”

                “Electronic voice phenomenon!” Gilbert smiled, so brilliantly that Dr. Holtzmann had to stop and collect herself. The physicist then grabbed Jillian’s hand and tugged her along, “Come on, I’ll show you! A few weeks ago, we spent a few nights at the Chelsea Hotel. We thought we didn’t get anything...”

                “Well... then we replayed the tapes,” Abby nodded solemly.

                Jillian let curiosity get the better of her, leaning towards the spinning tapes with interest. And then she heard the fart noise, letting herself stomp towards the exit in anger.

                “Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Gilbert spoke in a soft voice, a hint of giggles bubbling in the background, “It was just an immature joke... I’m sorry. I really am. I thought it would be funny. But... why are you really here, if you don’t believe in any of this stuff?”

                The slender fingers resting on her bicep caused her to stammer out some response about Ed Mulgrave and his stupid ghost claim. Before Jillian knew it, Abby was rushing past her with a silver duffle bag, and Gilbert was eagerly pulling down pages of equations and empty notepads for jotting down descriptions of the Mansion. Dr. Holtzmann stood there, dumbfounded, before Abby gestured at her to follow.

                “I don’t want to come with you,” Jillian murmured, shifting her MIT computer bag.

                “Oh— YOU WERE NEVER INVITED. I need you out so I can lock the lab!”

                “Come on, Jilly, we’re wasting time!” Gilbert smiled encouragingly, pulling out _yet another_ pencil from behind her left ear and jotting down some reminders.

                “Just shut the door on your way out!” Abby huffed.

                “Wait! Wait!” Jillian yelped as she followed the pair of women, “Please take the report off of your website!”

                Abby thought about it for a moment, glancing at a shrugging Gilbert, and then turning back to the blonde, “Alright, but you have to introduce us to Ed.”

                “You bet your ass!” Dr. Holtzmann agreed.

                “Then I will _consider_ taking the report down, until you get your stupid CORN deal or whatever.”

                “CERN!”

                “Hey, ladies!” the cabbie interrupted, “are you taking this car or not?”

.               .               .

 

                “Ma’am, can you tell me how you managed to steal an outfit directly from the Clinton Treasury?” Gilbert whispered, holding up a camera.

                Abby was somewhere ahead with a homemade device that spun around and around— Jillian was ninety-percent certain that it was programed for little use other than continuous spinning, yet Abby claimed that it would detect a paranormal entity if there was one present in the Aldridge Mansion. She gently pushed the camera away.

                “I bought this online.”

                “Is it comfortable to wear your hair like that all the time?” Gilbert asked, pointing the camera back at Dr. Holtzman’s taught blonde bun.

                “It’s not fun.”

                “Alright,” Gilbert smiled amusedly, focusing the camera on the Aldridge living room.

                “Hey, Erin! Come check this out!”

                “Un momento!”

                So... her first name was Erin? The engineer wistfully smiled at the new knowledge, and then shook her head. She could not seriously be having those thoughts again, after years of careful practice and making sure that that bullshit stayed hidden. Good luck, or bad luck perhaps, struck her from such feelings as her loafers got stuck in some sort of green goo and she heard the basement door creak open.

                Their afternoon became a spectrum of confusing and annoying to downright impossible then and there. While Gilbert munched on a box of Cheez-Its (“You try saying no to these cheesy death wishes!”), Dr. Holtzmann had attempted to initiate contact with some sort of blue floating ghost that’d come from the basement door. Abby filmed the whole thing; Jillian being spat upon with ectoplasm before the ghost of Gertrude Aldridge passed through the window and flew into the sky. The trio of women ran out the building and began cheering ecstatically as the blue spirit spiraled up, up, and away.

                “What... what just happened?” Dr. Holtzmann trembled, still covered in slime. “Abby... Gilbert... what just happened?”

                “I’ll tell you what just happened— you saw a ghost!”

                “I saw... I saw a ghost... we saw a ghost! We really did it! My report was right all this time!” Jillian cried, hugging onto Gilbert and Abby and then screaming into the camera, “I believe in ghosts because I just saw one! Ghosts are real! They’re real!”

 

                CERN never received Columbia’s recommendation for one Jillian Holtzmann.

 

 


	2. That's What You Get When You Spell Science With a "Y"

 

                “You. You two put that video online!” Dr. Holtzmann seethed, barging into the room and—

                All she saw was a pair of **_toned_** legs sticking straight up into the air, causing the air to get caught in her throat. Normally yoga pants were worn by straight white girls in line for their second cup of Starbucks, but this time the stretchy black fabric was attached to an actual participant of the art.

                “Why are you doing yoga in your lab? Don’t your students come in here?” Jillian asked, completely forgetting that she was angry at the Ghost News women.

                “Jilly! You’re back!” Gilbert’s voice echoed from the floor. The particle physicist returned to an upright position and stretched her arms. “My students are more than welcome to join me, but I’m afraid most of them see me as the old hippy professor; and you may have noticed that this isn’t the most distinguished student body in New York.”

                This time, the professor was wearing a Christmas sweater on the 18th of August, overalls with patches of various dog breeds sewn to them, her messy hair was held back by a headband with the Canadian flag pattern, and she somehow had more pencils sticking out of her lab coat than last time. And to top it all off, Gilbert’s face had flecks of paint on it, leaving her as colorful as a tropical bird and matching her personality to boot. Dr. Holtzmann felt a little off in her turtleneck and black slacks, her hair done into a braid that wrapped down her shoulder and her spotless glasses perched on her nose. She couldn’t quite place it— as though she’d gone to an event in semi-formal attire only to find out that it was a Halloween party. But that nonsense thinking wouldn’t do, Jillian quickly shook her head and snapped back into focus.

                “You’re not old. You’re... what... thirty-six?”

                “Aww, aren’t you the little Casanova?” Gilbert smirked, tapping Jillian on the nose with a graphite-smudged index finger. “Forty-three in four days. But you’ll have the ladies wrapped around your finger in no time!”

                “Men.”

                “Sorry?”

                Jillian coughed, “Men. Wrapped. Around the finger.”

                Gilbert’s mouth remained in a smile for a few seconds as warm eyes scanned Dr. Holtzmann, then she smiled even wider and turned back to her board of equations, “Of course, my bad.”

                “You’re back!” Abby called from behind a pile of papers.

                Dr. Holtzmann tried to regain the angry composure that she’d walked in with, “Yes. The video of us at the Aldridge Mansion was posted online. That’s the second time you’ve done something regarding me and my reputation without my permission.”

                “Yeah, but that was a big deal for us!” Gilbert said, sticking her leg up in the air for another yoga pose, “If we’d edited you out, ninety-percent of our footage would be gone!”

                “That’s why it’s called raw data, you have to cook it and trim off the bad parts. Like the part with _me_ in it,” Dr. Holtzmann said flatly. “At any rate, someone from Columbia found the link on Reddit this morning and all the hard work I’ve done has been flushed down the toilet!”

                Abby sobered up, “Hey, we’re sorry, Jillian. We didn’t mean for that to happen to you. But... there is a bright side? I mean, we saw a ghost, ya know? And she was beautiful!”

                “Especially the vomiting. Man, we collected a few vials worth of that stuff afterwards, and I could write a whole book on the ionization of her puke. I even have the perfect title— _What to Project When You’re Projecting_ ,” Gilbert grinned.

                “Erin?”

                “Yeah?”

                “Shut up,” Abby sighed, rubbing her nose. “Look, there was a heavy ionization discharge— a full torso transmogrification with corporeal aggression. I mean, how often does that happen? They want us to be quiet about that? We are not gonna be quiet about that! And it's not just us, we have over a hundred comments already. And they're not all crazies! Come here, I want to show you this— read that.”

                Jillian’s arms were folded across her chest and her brow furrowed with annoyance at the other two women as she read aloud the first comment on the YouTube page that she found, “Ain’t no bitches gonna hunt no ghosts.”

                “Oh. No. No. Here, read that one. This woman is describing a class three haunting in her home. She can’t move out, she can’t call the police. Who’s she going to call?”

                Their conversation was interrupted by some ghost hunting show on the old television next to them. Abby walked over and called them several nasty names as Jillian glanced around the lab. What they were working on... it was different than those television shows. They were actual scientists that simply lacked equipment and manpower. Womanpower. Whomsoever-you-identified-as-power. And Jillian’s belief in ghosts had been reinstated yesterday when she looked into the eyes of Gertrude Aldridge and found that she could see through them.

                “All right. All right, you make a few good points. Do you... you need someone to build all this equipment to study them, right?”

                Gilbert genuinely picked up Jillian a few inches off the ground, right then and there, and spun her in a circle, “We thought you’d never ask! Oop! Sorry, I’m bad at remembering people’s personal space.”

                A few pencils spilled out of Gilbert’s lab coat as she set Dr. Holtzmann down, who looked a little shocked at the contact but merely mumbled an “it’s fine” in response. Abby went to work coming up with a plan to get more funding from the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Embarrassment. They would need to perfectly articulate a business and educational plan in order to ensure that the Dean wouldn’t go bat-shit crazy on them for studying ghosts. Dr. Holtzmann felt like they were being a little too optimistic for the state of the current situation. Sure enough, when they all walked up to Dean Shank’s office, he yelled at them for a solid twenty minutes before flipping them off and saying that they could show themselves out. Gilbert shut the door and then pulled out a vile of ghost-vomit from the day before.

                “What are you...”

                “Shh,” Gilbert whispered, in a little bit of a sing song voice. She covered the handle of the door in the slime. “That’s what you get when you spell science with a y, you nerfherder.”

                Both pairs of blue eyes met, and Jillian shook her head a little, “You are crazy.”

                “The best scientists are, Jilly.”

                               

.               .               .

 

                So what if they ended up in the space above a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, with absolutely no form of income with which to cover the rent? So what if Jillian had no scientific research to work off of as she began to develop a reverse tractor beam? So what if they were hunting ghosts? It was honestly a liberating experience— going from teaching applied engineering for apathetic freshmen to having an actual space to work and design. To tinker and imagine. She’d truly missed this, and though it wasn’t CERN, the lab Jillian and the other women began to develop was... well, it had its own charm.

                “Um... is it okay if I put on some music?” she asked, to no one in particular.

                Abby was at the doorway arguing with Benny the Delivery Guy about the ratio of wonton to broth, and Gilbert was nowhere to be found. Jillian attached her iPod to the auxiliary cord and played the first song she could find.

                _Thump!_

                Jillian jumped and looked down, “Gilbert! Are you alrig— why were you hiding under the table?”

                “I was cleaning off the graffiti down here; we got this desk at the nearest Value Village for twenty bucks, can you believe it?!” the physicist said, not skipping a beat. “Oh! I love DeBarge!”

                Gilbert sprang out from under the desk and began dancing around, sending pages covered in equations flying everywhere. Jillian snatched them out of air and stuffed them under paperweights. Erin Gilbert certainly had a style of dancing, one that the engineer could only describe as carefree. With her eyes closed, Gilbert shifted from salsa to ballet to some sort of sad freestyle all throughout the span of the song. It wasn’t even peacocking, Jillian couldn’t help but feel as though Gilbert was dancing for herself and no one else in the universe.

                She suddenly understood why the kids at Kenneth P. Higgins called Gilbert a hippie.

                The older woman sent papers flying towards one of Dr. Holtzmann’s blowtorches (only to be used in special circumstances) and the latter had to intervene.

                “Now, really, we have to be safe around all this equipment!”

                Jillian began to realize how messy Gilbert’s space was; papers taped to every inch of free space on her whiteboard and office supplies sticking out of slightly rotted cubbies that she’d brought up from the alley. Several incongruent pie charts were tacked to the walls, and despite having read through Erin and Abby’s book, Dr. Holtzmann couldn’t make sense of them. The more Jillian looked, the crazier Gilbert’s space seemed— she even realized with a start that the physicist kept a chameleon behind her computer. Meanwhile, Jillian’s space was as clean as a church; with her wiring perfectly organized by color and thickness, and her tools neatly categorized in drawers by the wall. She even had safety lights!

                 “Sorry to DeBarge in!” Abby said, causing Gilbert to howl with laughter and Jillian to grimace. “I got the website out and I passed out a bunch of fliers.”

                “If you see something... say something...”

                “That’s good, that’s good. But I think it might be the anti-terrorist slogan.”

                “It is, isn’t it?”

                “I love the green paper!” Gilbert called out with a wide grin.

                Now, where were they? Oh, right, Jillian was about to lecture the physicist on lab safety. She walked around the desk and folded her arms as Gilbert attempted to organize the hundreds of pages of equations.

                “Hey!” a soft voice called, footsteps nearing closer.

                Both women looked up to find a hunky blond man dressed in semi-formal clothes with smart looking glasses perched on his nose. He seemed a little confused as to why he was in a Chinese restaurant and glanced around the lab.

                “Hi there,” Gilbert said in a confident, flirtatious manner. “How can you help me?”

                “Gilbert!” Jillian hissed nervously.

                The man smiled, “I’m here about the receptionist job.”

                “Oh? Receptionist? You must be a professional at getting people’s number,” Gilbert said, snaking closer to the man and taking his computer bag for him. “Out of curiosity, what’s your religion? Whoever you believe in did a good job on you, sweetie.”

                If Jillian could roll her eyes any further she would enter in a bowling tournament with them. She didn’t know why, but the interaction with Gilbert and this man (who seemed a little clueless to the flirting) seriously irked her. Maybe she was attracted to him as well, and envy was creeping up on her. Jillian shook her head and turned back to her machines— he wasn’t her type of man. Her type of man was... well... that wasn’t the point!

                “Alright, I’ve got it, ‘If there’s something strange in your neighborhood’—”

                Gilbert pinched Abby, “We have a visitor, love.”

                “Oh! Kevin! We spoke on the phone!”

                “We did!”

                Jillian ignored Gilbert’s confident smirk as she checked the first aid kit in the corner of the room. She also ignored the very coquettish ‘Kevin? That’s a manly name, sweetie. Mine’s Erin... with an E for engaged in those biceps of yours—”

                “OKAY, WELL WE SHOULD DO THE INTERVIEW, HMM?” Abby interrupted.

                As Kevin grabbed a spare copy of his resume, the other two women bickered about the unsuitability of flirting in the workplace. Gilbert gave Abby a pout that could charm a police officer out of a ticket, but had no such luck on her best friend. Dr. Holtzmann took her seat next to Abby and zoned out for the rest of the interview— bummed out even though she couldn’t figure out why.

               

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus:  
> Just something that I thought of while I was typing this chapter


	3. Mrs. Nesbitt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gilbert tries to do a thing, the rest of the crew stops her from doing the thing.

 

 

                “You sure you’ve got the proper equipment for this?” Patty asked.

                They were in the subways, where the darkness and filth factors were beginning to convince Jillian that there was definitely a ghost here. Gilbert skipped ahead of the group, literally, and held her flashlight up at the pipes and beams above them.

                “It would totally make sense for someone to die down here,” she said in her sing-song voice. “This place is breaking some egregious fire codes.”

                Dr. Holtzmann pushed a cart of equipment on the tracks, causing it to bounce around and rattle her hands. Untested equipment, mind. She worried that her gear would fail instantly, and fiddled with a few of the settings as they drew closer to where Patty had spotted the ghost. Jillian liked Patty— as though, for a day, their group had been blessed with the voice of reason. The MTA worker pointed out the spot where she’d seen the aspiration and left the Conductors of Metaphysical Examination to do their duties.

                “Oooh! Look at this! Fission scorch!” Gilbert pointed out. “It totally looks like when cartoon characters blow up and they leave behind a silhouette!”

                Abby scoffed, “What? Fission scorch? That is not fission scorch... except you’re totally right.”

                “I always am!”

                While they sniffed the dirty piece of metal, Dr. Holtzmann went to work firing up the laptop that she’d connected to the cart. Her programming skills had last been updated ten years ago, and she worried that the slightest miscalculation would send them to heaven a few decades early. She leaned up against the cart and sifted through the code one last time to check for errors. A chill blew down her spine, and she rolled her eyes— sure the place was spooky, and they were hunting ghosts, but wasn’t that a little extra?

                And then she heard breathing right behind her. Like when a pervert stands too close to you in line at the store because he gets a kick out of making women uncomfortable. Dr. Holtzmann gulped, ignoring the bickering of the other two scientists and Patty’s warning about the express train arriving in five minutes. Eventually, they noticed her silence and turned to look at Jillian. She sighed;

                “It’s behind me, isn’t it?”

                “Jilly,” Gilbert pondered. “ _Hypothetically_... if there were a ghost in this tunnel, you’d have the technology to shoot it before it throws one of us into that seven-hundred-and-fifty-volt rail, right? I mean... I’m just asking for _hypothetical_ reasons...”

                “Erin!”

                “What? Think Schrodinger’s ghost, Jilly— until you turn around, there both is and _is not_ a ghost behind you. Trust me, I specialize in physics!”

                “Y’all gonna take care of that, right?” Patty asked. “We only got a few more minutes.”

                Jillian slowly moved forwards, so as not to startle the hypothetical ghost to attack. She started up the proton gun she’d been working on and gazed directly into Gilbert’s amused eyes. The computer screen reflected a blue light behind her, and judging by its size, she could move approximately three feet without pissing it off.

                “Gilbert, pick up that proton gun very, very slowly.”

                The physicist did so, and Jillian passed her the grounding neck-brace, “Abby, put that on her, will you?”

                “A collar? I didn’t know you were into that kind of thing, Jilly—”

                “SHUT UP,” the other three women all hissed. Gilbert looked smug.

                Jillian typed a few commands into the computer and very softly instructed Gilbert on what to do with the prototype. She then ducked out of the way, causing the ghost to snarl. The physicist fired a pathetic stream of light at the ghost that managed to wrap around his torso. Jillian finally got a look at him— a prisoner, like Patty had been lecturing them about, wearing a rotten striped uniform. At the top of his head, there was a crackling helmet of some kind; no doubt the very item that’d carried out his execution. But she didn’t have time to think about the details— her thoughts interrupted by a bellowing horn.

                “That’s the express train, and it is not stopping!”

                Patty and Abby grabbed a laughing Erin underneath the arms and began to pull her towards the platform. The ghost began to be dragged along with them, yet held at bay by the proton stream— affirming Jillian’s marvelous engineering. She ran up onto the platform, thinking she was safe, and then looked back at Gilbert— the collar wrapped around her neck. So much for safety, she could be killed!

                Jillian pushed Patty to the side and unbuckled the collar just as the train passed by. As thanks for saving Gilbert’s life, she was suddenly showered in ectoplasm. An ungodly amount, just like last time, all over her cashmere sweater that her father had given her as a birthday present. Thankfully her glasses protected her eyes from some slime, but her hair had no such luck.

                “I guess he goin’ to Queens. He’s gonna be the third scariest thing on that train tonight.”

                “Wooo! That was amazing!” Gilbert laughed.

                Jillian meekly glanced at the floor, wiping some ectoplasm out of her eyes, “You almost died.”

                Gilbert pulled a pencil out of her pocket and began writing notes on a slime-covered notepad, “Yeah, it was awesome! We have got to do that again!”

               

.               .               .

 

                “Do you think this is a ghost’s favorite song?”

                “Gilbert, you’ve played _‘Be My Boo’_ three times in the past half hour. It was funny the first time,” Jillian sighed, using her jewel-head screwdriver to salvage what was left of the strange device’s smashed core.

                “You can’t deny that it’s the best song in the world.”

                “That... that’s not the point. It’s true, but it’s not the point.”

                Gilbert pouted, switched to an eighty’s station, and sauntered over to the work station, leaning over the desk and playing with the chromium alloy shell. Abby also wandered over discussing how those parts weren’t supposed to be in the subway— prompting her and Gilbert to nerd out about some sort of miniature cyclotron. Patty, who’d been sitting in a booth unnoticed, joined them in discussion— saying that she had never seen the ‘weird sparky thing’ before the ghost had shown up. During the conversation, Gilbert’s eyes weren’t focused on the device; they were staring straight at Jillian, who didn’t know what to feel.

                So, when Kevin delivered Abby’s coffee and foolishly spat into it, Dr. Holtzmann Ph.D. of MIT quickly snatched up the cup and murmured, “Wouldn’t want to waste it.”

                Jillian took a big sip to distract herself from Gilbert’s amused stare. Then, she discovered that Kevin the Receptionist of the Conductors of Metaphysical Examinations Lab didn’t know the difference between _sugar and salt_. No wonder he hated coffee, he’d concocted Lucifer’s Latte. Jillian rushed over to the trash can and spat out the coffee into the bin, ignoring Gilbert, Patty, and Abby’s roaring laughter.

                  “Better luck next time,” Gilbert smiled, handing Jillian a paper towel. “You have a few stains. Do you want me to get you a new shirt?”

                Jillian nodded, “Thanks.”

                An XXL University of Michigan hockey jersey was thrown onto her chair, and Gilbert shooed the others out of the lab for food from downstairs (but Jillian knew it was so she could change and continue to work in peace). Eventually the physicist wandered back up to the main room to silently deliver a steaming hot plate of General Tso’s to Jillian. She had a sympathetic, captivating smile on her plate as she began to work on new equations for the proton guns.

                “W-Where did you get this jersey? I can’t imagine you playing in it,” Jillian feebly mumbled, still embarrassed about the coffee.            

                “I never have to shop for clothes, ever. I just steal my outfits from boyfriends and girlfriends. She was a goal keeper that could rock the rink, among other notable locations.”

                “Do you ever not talk about sex?”

                Gilbert leaned against the whiteboard, capping her marker and smirking, “I hope I didn’t offend you, with my revelries in being with a woman.”

                 “No! No, it’s not that, I swear! I’m not homophobic! I just...”

                The physicist walked around the desk and removed the General Tso’s from Jillian’s shaking hands. She then shot forwards at a startling speed and kissed her right on the mouth before stepping backwards just as quickly and grinning like a maniac. Gilbert licked her lips and thought about it for a moment before poking Jillian in the shoulder.

                “You taste like ectoplasm— you’ll want to use some of Abby’s Listerine.”

                The engineer was dumbfounded, trying to catch her breath and her balance at the same time. She then glanced up at a parting Gilbert heading down to join the rest of the team. Her lips shouldn’t have been tingling, it wasn’t any different than when a female friend kissed your cheek. She hadn’t even had time to close her eyes before the physicist had kissed her. Jillian shook her head— it had to have been a kiss between friends, there wasn’t even any romance between them!

                “I’m straight!” she called after Gilbert.

                “Sure, Jill.”

                “I mean it!”

                “I didn’t say otherwise. Good night, Jillian.”

                Her brain remained fried for the rest of the night, causing her to knock over three separate mugs of tea, electrocute herself twice, and nearly step on Gilbert’s pet chameleon, Mrs. Nesbitt ( _“Why did you name a male chameleon ‘Mrs?’” “He likes Toy Story, Jill”_ ).

 

.               .               .

 

                “You didn’t disclose that the vehicle was going to be a hearse.”

                “Oh, I’m sorry, my uncle owns a funeral home— not an Enterprise Rent-a-Car!”

                “I wonder if there’s a body in the back,” Gilbert pondered, “A couple quick pokes with a cattle prod and we could have a ghost in our lab by 3:00 this afternoon!”

                “No! No, no, no, no, no,” Patty shook her head. “You stick with your creepy ass white boards and conspiracy walls.”

                Gilbert sighed dramatically and turned to go back inside, “Shame.”

                “Don’t be like that.”

                Up in the lab, Abby and Jillian went to work constructing an even better version of the gun they’d used in the subway. Meanwhile Patty was compiling research on subway sightings of the ghost that the team had lost, and Kevin was doing some heavy lifting for Gilbert. Eventually, he brought up a drawing desk and set it in the corner— the physicist pulled out a huge drawing pad and Prismacolor pencils. Great. More pencils for Jillian to step on when she left the lab tonight.

                “He was really beautiful, wasn’t he?”

                “Who?”

                Gilbert took Mrs. Nesbitt out of his habitat and set the chameleon on the top of her head. She then began to work on a new drawing, poking her tongue between her teeth and tugging on her braid as she jogged her memory before turning to answer Jillian’s question.

                “The ghost in the subways— I could’ve sworn he shifted through different shades of blue!”

                “Used to only draw that old lady all the time,” Abby muttered under her breath. “At least now she has a new subject.”

                “And Gertrude Aldridge! I am going to track her down and do a portrait of her if it kills me,” Gilbert sighed dreamily. “Her dress was something else!”

                “You’re an artist?”

                “Don’t get her started,” Abby warned.

                “If it hadn’t been for that crazy old cow sitting at the foot of my bed for a year, I would be studying at Cornish in Seattle!”

                “Wait, an elderly woman sat at the foot of your bed for a year and you didn’t call the cops or tell your parents or anything?”

                “She was dead! I mean, she was a ghost, not a dead body. We had a lot of one-sided conversations, and eventually I just started drawing her. My parents found out that I had... morbid tastes considering I incessantly drew the deceased lady who used to live next door. Anyways, they said I couldn’t draw any more— and I am fueled by spite, mind you— so I moved onto greener pastures. Literally. There’s nothing else to draw in the Midwest.”

                “Never told your parents that there was a ghost?”

                Gilbert shrugged, “I was smart enough to know that they wouldn’t believe me. But when Abby moved to my hometown, she came across one of my sketchbooks in the lost-and-found and saw a bazillion pictures of Mrs. Sullivan. She confronted me and the next thing I knew we were hunting ghosts all over northern Michigan.”

                “You believed her that quickly?” Jillian asked.

                Abby set down the prototype and glanced at Gilbert— fervently drawing with a chameleon sitting on the top of her head, donning a pinstripe blazer and a tank top with some obscure video game reference on it, and now sporting no less than eight color pencils in her breast pocket. Abby sighed and went back to her work, saying;

                “I probably shouldn’t have, but she’s awfully charismatic.”

               

               

               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys thought of this chapter! Art by the wonderful Rootproxy (thank you thank you thank you thank). Have a wonderful rest of your day!  
> Edit: I found the grammar mistake and corrected it B)


	4. We Brake for Nobody

 

               

                Oh no.

                There wasn’t just a chameleon.

                It started out as a fantastically pleasant Sunday— for once there was nothing but sunshine outdoors and productivity indoors. Abby knew more code then Jillian did, and was offering to type up an autonomous sequence for the ghost trap that they were working on. Patty was working on a huge map of New York City that covered their eastern wall, writing down every sight of a horrendous crime in the past three hundred years (they quickly deduced that this town was a hellhole and any reasonable, sane person would move away if they knew what was good for them). Dr. Holtzmann began to wrap up her work on the new-and-improved proton guns— one for each member of the team and locked behind a cage where Kevin couldn’t get to them. She glanced at Gilbert, who was dancing around in a one-person waltz as she attempted to solve an equation. Today, the orange belt on her waist clashed horribly with the purple crop top, her glitter-covered beanie had seen better days, and her rubber boots Gilbert danced around in had a spaceship pattern on them. Despite the wardrobe Holtzmann decided to make pleasant conversation;

                “I like your belt, where did you get it?”

                The other woman didn’t skip a beat, “PetCo.”

                Well, that was the first warning flag. Jillian took a second look at the object wrapped around physicist’s neck and raised an eyebrow.

                “Gilbert.”

                “Oui, mon scientifique?”

                “Is that a snake around your waist?”

                “Or am I just happy to see you?” Gilbert laughed, uncapping her marker and circling several digits on the whiteboard, “Yes, and before you ask, her name is Skyscraper.”

                “W-Why do you have _both_ a chameleon a-and a snake?”

                “Because it’s a terrific conversation starter, Jilly. Among other things.”

                And that was that. Jillian quietly sat back down at her seat and went back to work, watching as Gilbert picked Skyscraper off of her waist and wrapped the snake around her arm. With every passing day, this eccentric woman was becoming more and more like Ms. Frizzle, or one of the Kratt brothers from the Zoboomafoo TV series. She looked up and found herself face to face with the bizarre scientist. Gilbert held the snake up and a tiny, forked tongue poked out to sniff Dr. Holtzmann.

                “I didn’t ask— would you like to say ‘hi’ to her?”

                “Oh. Um... well... that’s a polite offer... but...”

                “Well too bad, I’m going out; and as pretty as Kevin is, I don’t trust him around the living properties. Just keep her well supported when you hold her and don’t let her eat anything— she’s very stubborn about that. Tank’s behind white board number six, and be sure to put a lid on it when you’re done with her. Skyscraper can escape faster than a politician during a press conference.”

                “W-Why can’t A-Abby handle the snake?” Jillian asked.

                “Because Skyscraper likes you, and I booked today for exclusive one-on-one time with one Jilly Holtzmann.”

                “Wait. Is this snake poisonous?”

                “Don’t be ridiculous, of course she isn’t. Skyscraper wraps herself around her prey and squeezes it to death like any other strong, independent feminist. Geez.”

                With that, Gilbert swooped out of the room like a witch on a broomstick (by now, Jillian was slightly convinced that the physicist had spent a few years at Hogwarts) and gave Kevin a _boop_ on the nose before heading down the stairs. He didn’t even notice, far too busy in his coloring book for the rest of the world to matter. Skyscraper the Snake slithered into Dr. Holtzmann’s lap and did the tongue-flicking thing for about ten minutes before trying to find a new environment to explore. Jillian nervously kept pulled Skyscraper back into her lap out of fear and glanced up at Abby.

                “Is this normal?”

                Abby shifted her laptop so that she could make eye contact with Jillian, “Yes.”

                “And she just brings animals into labs with radioactive materials in them.”

                “Please, the TSA is more likely to turn you into a mutant than we are. Just calm your tits and pet the snake, Jillian.” 

                The engineer turned her swivel chair, “Hey Patty, do you want a turn with the—”

                “No.”

                “Oh. Alright then.”

                Skyscraper began to climb up Jillian’s cardigan. Her tongue flicked against the engineer’s neck, and Dr. Holtzmann had a hard time sitting still. Eventually she gave in and brought the reptile back to its tank, making _damn sure_ to shut the lid as tight as she could. Skyscraper sniffed around her habitat for a few moments before burying herself in the shavings.

                Part of Jillian missed the uptight, but predictable air that filled the Columbia hallways— but another part of her... a newfound piece of her truly enjoyed the sporadic lifestyle that Erin Gilbert brought with her, wherever she went. At least, she enjoyed it until she looked down.

                “Abby.”

                “Yes, Jillian?”

                “It peed on me.”

                 “Oh good, I’ve been meaning to test out the new chemical shower we got.” 

 

.               .               .

 

                “WHO WAS ON THE PHONE?!”

                Kevin squinted as he tried to remember the conversation he had five seconds ago, “The Stonebrook Theatre? There’s a goat on the loose.”

                Gilbert sprinted to the wall and tossed the keys to Jillian, “We’re goin’ on a ghost hunt! I’m not afraid! Cause I got my proton gun! And my backpack at my side!”

                “Careful with that!” Jillian groaned, “I spent all night fine tuning the proton guns.”  

                “I got something for us!” Patty called, heading over to her duffle bag.

                All of them ran down to the garage that the Chinese restaurant let them use— and Patty nearly fainted at what Gilbert had done to her uncle’s hearse. There was a beautiful, but goofy logo of a ghost with a red slash running through him on the side of the Cadillac, a set of sirens on the top and...

                “I knew I hadn’t lost those!” Jillian angrily objected, looking up at the cylinders that’d gone missing from her lab.

                Abby shrugged, “We need those for backup power! Our proton guns won’t last forever on their batteries.”

                “Why are there bumper stickers on my uncle’s car? Why would you put _‘we brake for nobody’_ on a HEARSE?!”

                “Aesthetic,” Gilbert smiled.

                Patty grumbled to herself as she dished out coveralls for the group to wear when hunting ghosts— guaranteeing that no one would be slimed. Holtzmann put her black rubber boots on, glancing over at Gilbert skipping around in her bright turquoise shoes. They were just about ready to leave when a man walked up to the group.

                “Erin! Hey Erin!”

                “Oh... Phil’s back.”

                Abby didn’t even turn to look at Gilbert, “Don’t you dare. Don’t do it.”

                “I’m going to do it.”

                “Oh my god.”

                Dr. Holtzmann whipped around to find none other than one of her colleagues from Columbia trying to initiate a conversation with an unamused Gilbert. It was the first time that the physicist lacked joy on her face— fiddling with the knobs on her proton pack instead of listening to Phil from the French Department drone on and on. Jillian had always hated him, and now she had a proper reason, as it was becoming more than obvious that they were exes. The man and woman began to yell. Jillian thought about intervening, and then Phil raised his hand in the air, as if to strike Gilbert. The engineer quickly moved to cross the street but was stopped when Gilbert pulled out her proton gun as quick as a flash of lightning, and pressed it into Phil’s neck.

                “You are never going to hit me again,” the usually cheerful woman growled, “You aren’t going to hit any of the women here. You aren’t going to abuse another woman in this world ever again, or I will use this laser to put your balls in one of our ghost traps. Are we clear?”

                “Y-Yes,” Phil whimpered.

                “Oh. Always the reasonable one, you,” Gilbert smiled, returning to her normal, joyful demeanor. She set the gun back onto her pack. “I hope you get that raise you were texting me about. Have a good day.”

                The physicist walked back across the street, and Jillian took in her radiance; the squid earrings, the llama bandana, and the utter look of determination in her eyes. She didn’t know what to say, but Gilbert did a little curtsey to break the ice;

                “Shall we be off, my fair lady?”

                Jillian nodded, “Um. Sure.”

                They loaded into the car, stacking their proton packs into the sliding tray underneath. Overall, the bust went swimmingly— if by swimmingly you meant that Jillian was nearly slimed again, a giant Satan-like monster landed on Patty’s shoulders, and Gilbert demanded to go through the Stonebrook Theatre’s costume department as payment for the bust. Jillian could have sworn that the ghost trap rattled a little as it sat in between her and Abby on the way home, and pledged herself to fine tune the various adjustments until Laverne ( _“It’s either that, Victor, or Hugo. Surely, you’ve seen Hunchback of Notre Dame, Jilly.”_ ) would settle down.

                Holtzmann set Laverne down on the table and excused herself to grab some lunch. Down in the first floor of the restaurant, Benny complained as he washed dishes, and Mr. Yu was working on a new batch of roasted duck for rush hour that evening. His daughter Katherine set down a plate of cooked vegetables and congratulated Holtzmann on the bust, pointing up at the TV.

                Gilbert slid into the booth and picked up a piece of ginger with her fingers out of Jillian’s dish, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

                “What?”

                “My little tiff with Phil. We broke up about a month ago, but sometimes men just don’t get it. At any rate, I have blackmail material on him in case he tries that bullshit again.”

                Jillian didn’t look up from her plate, “Why wouldn’t you go to the police about him hitting you?”

                “I did, but I didn’t have solid evidence and the Police didn’t believe me.”

                “You said the same thing. A few days ago, you said that your parents wouldn’t believe you if you’d told them about a ghost— but, Erin, a seeing an apparition is one thing. Someone hitting you is _illegal_. That’s not exactly a case of Boy Who Cried Wolf... it’s the Police’s job to believe you.”

                Gilbert had a soft twinkle in her eyes, “Don’t you worry, little duckling. He won’t come back.”

                “What happened? What did he do to you?”

                The physicist stood and grabbed another piece of ginger, popping it into her mouth before patting Jillian’s shoulder, “That’s a story for another day, little duck.”

               

.               .               .

 

                In the span of one afternoon, they captured a ghost, threw a misogynist out of a window, and got to ride in those black government SUV’s that you always saw in the movies. Agents Hawken and Rourke pretended not to notice Gilbert put a small smiley sticker on the side as she exited ( _“Black just looks so gloomy! And we’re the ones who chase around dead people!”_ ) before escorting the team into a tall, fancy building.

                How were the rest of the Ghostbusters supposed to know that Gilbert would bring Skyscraper with her to the Mayor’s office inside of her uniform? How was Gilbert supposed to know that Jennifer Lynch had ophiophobia and nearly fainted when she saw the wiggling under the physicist’s collar? To be fair though, Gilbert _probably_ should have warned the team that Skyscraper liked to pee in new environments. Long story short, they were escorted from the Mayor’s office after a quick warning about keeping quiet on the Ghost Shtick from Bradley and several sequences of shrieking from his assistant.

                “Shhh... shhh... Mommy’s here,” Gilbert whispered to the serpent curled around her neck. “That was very brave of you to go on his desk back there, I know how important political activism and civil disobedience is to you, Sky. I don’t agree with his policies, either.”

                “I can’t believe you brought your snake to the Mayor’s office,” Abby smiled.

                Patty sighed, “I can.”

                Back at the alley behind the Chinese restaurant, Jillian nervously set out a table of new gadgets that she was working on. She fiddled with her hands as Gilbert stepped up to bat, picking up the hand-cannon that Jillian had designed.

                “Wait! Wait! I’m... uh... adjustments to m-make,” she stammered, taking the gun. “Um... here?”

                She found her swiss army knife in her pocket and passed it to Gilbert, who eagerly opened it and said, “This is a perfect cutlass for Mrs. Nesbitt’s Jack Sparrow costume I’ve been working on!”

                Jillian had them demonstrate the various tools with a nervous edge to her voice, unsure of what her newfound friends would think of her engineering. The grenades, the chipper, the glove. She was surprised to find that all of them loved the devices she’d come up with, and it startled her a little to hear so much praise.

                She could get used to it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jilly, that's gay.


	5. Apocalypse n' Friends

               

                “Jilly, can you... um... ow, ow, ow!”

                In a flash, the engineer was supporting Gilbert by the elbow, hearing Abby mention somewhere in the background about grabbing the physicist’s cane. Jillian gently set Gilbert down onto the couch that Kevin had supposedly found for them at Goodwill (" _What do you mean it only cost you three guitar picks and a stick of deodorant?”_ ). Gilbert whimpered and hissed in pain, clutching her hip.

                “I brought you the meds and your cane,” Abby called.

                Jillian grabbed her work stool and sat down next to the couch, holding Gilbert’s hand, “What’s wrong, what happened?”

                “Oh... you know me... always falling for beautiful women.”

                Abby threw the cane on the couch, “You have got to be kidding me— just shut up and let me get you an ice pack.”

                “Seriously though, why are you in pain?” Jillian asked.

                “Car accident, about a month before we met you. Some asshole t-boned me in Ditmas Park. I couldn’t move for a whole week,” Gilbert smiled, accepting an ice-pack from Abby and setting it on her right leg. “Thank you, my angel of music. Ah, the joys of having a best friend; namely indentured servitude."

                “Did you ever find the guy who did it?” Jillian asked, unscrewing the bottle of pain reliever pills.

                She shrugged, “Yeah, he paid for what my insurance couldn’t cover, so no harm no foul.”

                “No harm n— he could have killed you, Gilbert!”

                Blue eyes met hers, and a hand covered Jillian’s trembling ones. Gilbert took a deep breath, closing her eyes and shaking her head, “Can we talk about something else, Jilly? I don’t like thinking about the crash... it still gives me nightmares.”

                “Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’m sorry. How are your equations going?”

                Gilbert grabbed the cane and pushed herself up, leaning on the stick for support as she walked towards her whiteboards. When she got there, she gently brought her leg up all the way over the desk and began stretching. Jillian, unsure of if she needed to offer assistance, hovered nearby— making the mental calculations of how close she needed to stand so that she could catch Gilbert in time were she to fall. A faint hint of tangerine floated through the air, and while fragrance normally made Jillian a little dizzy, she couldn't help but find herself drawn towards it. She instantly took a step back when she realized that the perfume came from Gilbert. Wouldn't want to come off as a creeper or anything.

                “I’ve been working on a calculation that could predict where the next haunting occurs, based on the location of the last one... but I think I missed something.”

                “What do you mean?” Jillian asked.

                “Well, I keep coming up with... a line on the map, and I can’t help but feel as though that would be too easy... it’s like when you keep coming up with C’s on a scantron during your midterm and you black out.”

                “Let me look at it,” the Jillian said, pulling up a copy of Manhattan. “Abby, recent ghost sightings, go!”

                There was a stumble in the hallway, and she heard a muffled voice exclaim, “Wailing spirit, 6th and 26th. Polar bear, 63rd and 5th. Oh! And the thrift store in Chelsea!”

                Gilbert snatched the marker and wrote down the Stonebrook Theater, the Subway Station, and the Aldridge Mansion. She then drew a line that intersected with the first one, right at Times Square. They made eye contact for a solid ten seconds, with only a few inches between their faces; the unspoken revelation hanging between them. Jillian trembled a little, realizing that everything she’d read as a kid in college made sense— that cryptids class was right all along. She’d always dismissed the theory of Ley Lines, thinking that if ghosts were to even exist, it would be pure coincidence rather than some mathematical explina—

                The older woman blew a raspberry in her face, stopping her from zoning out.

                “Jilly, he’s using the devices we found to charge Ley Lines to rip a hole between our world and the paranormal world. That’s so smart of him, why didn’t we do that?” Gilbert asked, glancing at the map again. “We’d never need to go looking for test subjects ever again.”

                Abby and Patty walked up, and the former scoffed, “Because that would create... a vortex. Oh shit, he’s creating a vortex.”

                “Oh my god, it’s like _Life is Strange_ all over again,” Erin whispered.

                As soon as the Ghostbusters had located the address of the Ley Line intersection and the face of the man who was causing all of this, they began to grab equipment. Jillian flinched as she watched Gilbert hobble around on her cane. She was quick to handle the physicist’s heavy proton pack, earning her a grateful smile and a wink from the injured woman.

                Gilbert stepped into the elevator with Jillian, her beige Ghostbusting suit draped across her free arm as she leaned against the wall, “Do you think if I mapped out all the former apartments of my exes, I’d come up with Laid Lines?”

                “I hate you. From the bottom of my heart.”

                “At least I still have someone who loves me, isn’t that right, Mrs. Nesbitt?”

                Jillian’s head snapped so quickly she worried that she might get whiplash, “YOU ARE NOT BRINGING YOUR CHAMELEON WITH YOU TO THE APOCALYPSE.”

 

.               .               .

 

               “I see things that no one else sees, and for it, I am rewarded with nothing but scorn and mockery,” Rowan snarled. “Luckily I am not the only one. Behind these are millions of souls, souls which have been cast aside. Souls who see the world as it truly is; garbage. Garbage that needs to be cleaned up. When these barriers are destroyed, an army of undead will return to pester the living.”

                “The undead already pester the living, just look at the House and the Senate.”

                “Erin, I swear to God!”

               “Um... Mr. Janitor, I think the word you’re looking for is apocalypse,” Jillian said, her finger on the trigger of her proton gun.

                 “Well, let’s get those barriers destroyed, shall we?”

                 “Hey!” Gilbert called out, causing Rowan to turn around, “There’s plenty of good reasons to keep Earth the way it is. There’s these three gals beside me, pencils, Barack Obama...”

                “He’s going out of office soon,” Patty sighed.

 

                There was a long, long pause between all five people in the room.

 

                “Two good reasons to keep the Earth the way it is!”

                Rowan began to turn back towards his machine, stopped by Abby warning him that the police would be there shortly. Then he surprised all of them by slamming his hands down on the device and electrocuting himself. Jillian watched him fall to the ground, still smoldering, and was pushed by Patty towards the control panel to turn the machine off. Instincts kicked in to shut the equipment down, her mind numb with the concept that she’d watched someone ~~kill himself~~ die right before her eyes, even though Martin Heiss had been killed no less than a week ago, and she’d felt nothing then. Jillian pulled a lever and listened to the contraption sputter and die.

                She fainted next to Rowan’s body, hearing a heartbreaking scream come from Gilbert.

 

.               .               .

 

                Jillian felt a weight on the lower half of her body, and opened her eyes to investigate. She was lying in her own bed, at her apartment in Queens. The engineer propped herself up on her elbows and found... Skyscraper’s tank resting on her shins. Meanwhile, Mrs. Nesbitt was sitting on her chest, one eye focused on Jillian and one eye aimed towards her kitchen.

                The toilet in her master bathroom flushed, and Gilbert stepped out. It was the first time Jillian had ever seen the physicist wearing normal, matching clothing; a tank top and some jeans, with only a little bit of paint on them. Gilbert also sported some Stormtrooper earrings, which made Dr. Holtzmann a little jealous. She sat down on the bed and picked Mrs. Nesbitt up.

                “You had us worried there, Jilly. I mean, if you got sick and died, who would be left for me to blame for the recent string of cat burglaries of Broadway Theaters? I’m sorry, but I have to get those Hamilton Tickets somehow, and I need a scapegoat.”

                The engineer said nothing, letting the memories of the encounter with Rowan fill her head. How he just... made the decision to kill himself like it was nothing. It brought back memories for Holtzmann. Bad memories. These were things she hadn’t been forced to deal with back at her comfortable job at Columbia; was this what it was going to be like, working for the Ghostbusters? Was... was she going to encounter ghosts of people who had committe—

                “Do you want me to get you anything?”

                Silence.

                “Would you like to talk about it with me?”

                Silence again, though Jillian’s heart felt like a war drum in her chest. For once, she just wanted Gilbert to leave. The latter seemed to get the hint, standing up and grabbing her coat.

                “Skyscraper and Mrs. Nesbitt have offered to keep you company until you’re ready to join us again. Oh, and we also found Rowan’s copy of _Ghosts of Our Past_ , in case you wanted something to read while you recover.”

                Silence.

                Gilbert then bent down and kissed Jillian’s forehead, smoothing out her blonde hair and whispering, “I love you. Abby and Patty love you. You’re a strong person, Jilly, and I have a feeling you’ll bounce back from this quicker than Gumby on a pair of Moon Shoes.”

                Just as Gilbert was about to leave the bedroom, Dr. Holtzmann opened her mouth. The physicist waited patiently, but Jillian couldn’t form the correct words. A shaky sigh escaped her lips, and she closed her eyes. A weight sunk the bed down, and a hand carefully snuck into her own.

                “Just because things are not said aloud, does not mean they are unspoken.”

                With that, the older woman left Jillian’s apartment. As soon as the engineer heard the door shut, she broke down crying.

 

.               .               .

 

                No one was answering their phones, which was too be expected of Gilbert, but Abby and Patty should have known better— what with the whole Rowan thing going on. Jillian called them all for a third time and left the message of what she’d discovered in Rowan’s book. The drawings in here weren’t anything like the sweet ghosts that Erin drew on her pedestal after she was done for the night. These were horrifying, and they tipped off Jillian that Rowan was going to attempt to reopen the portal.

                _“Mayor Bradley is hosting a meeting at Lotus Leaf with several diplomats this very moment.”_

                Jillian glanced at the TV, grabbed the keys to her motorcycle, and stuffed Mrs. Nesbitt into a spare shoebox with some chopped apple bits— hissing “don’t move” at him. She thought about it, and then grabbed two important items that she figured would come in handy in speaking with Mayor Bradley. It took her about ten minutes to get to the restaurant, weaving through traffic and not even caring about the possibility of being pulled over. She walked into the restaurant and pulled out the first item she’d brought with her— the book. Jillian opened the page where Rowan had started drawing creepy fortunes, and slammed Ghosts of Our Pasts (Both Literally and Figuratively) onto the table.

                “He planned this. The crazy weirdo is going to fill the city with ghosts, and you need to do something about it,” Jillian calmly demanded.

                “We’re in the middle of an important meeting as you can see,” Jennifer Lynch curtly said.

                The Mayor’s Assistant attempted to grab Jillian’s arm and drag her away, but the engineer was one step ahead of her and already reaching for the second object she’d brought. Jillian pulled Skyscraper out of her pocket and waved her around in Lynch’s face. The assistant backed away and tripped into a waiter’s arms with a horrendous shriek, effectively solving that issue.

                “Why should I believe you?” Mayor Bradley scoffed, turning and apologizing to his diplomats. “You know how this city can get sometimes, we try to be progressive but all types of people walk these streets—”

                Jillian picked up his glass of wine and threw it in his face.

                “Because you and Homeland Security already do. I don’t have time for your little play at normality, within thirty minutes there’s going to be swarms of ghosts all over New York. I suggest you get your ass into action, I gotta go put this snake away.”

                The Jillian working at Columbia never would have done that, and Dr. Holtzmann was starting to suspect that the Ghostbusters had a terrible influence on her. She straddled the motorcycle and checked her mirrors— the vortex was already forming over the Mercado, and she desperately pleaded to an unknown deity that the others had already suited up. It was going to be a long night.

                Someone had the common sense to leave Jillian’s gear at the Chinese restaurant. She set Skyscraper down in her dog bed ( _“What? Just because someone has scales doesn’t mean they can’t appreciate the finer things in life, Jilly”_ ) and got to work. She had roughly fifteen minutes before the ghosts could reach the lab from the Mercado, and fortunately all of her equipment was up-to-date. And thank god Gilbert loved going to junkyards upstate, she’d found some amazing pieces of metal that Jillian was now piecing together. As soon as she completed the little device, she stuffed it into her pocket and slung her proton pack around her shoulders, heading out of the room. She quickly rushed back into the lab and pointed a finger at the corn snake;

                “Stay there and don’t you so much as _think_ about eating my spark plugs.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, the fic will go past the events of the movie. Also I'm sorry that I posted 2 chapters in one day, I just got so excited!!!  
> Love,  
> Z
> 
> Edit: Shit! I knew I forgot something! I'm so sorry! Art is by the wonderful, talented Rootproxy!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!


	6. Wish Me Luck, Jilly

 

                It happened a second time, and Dr. Holtzmann wasn’t sure how to react. She wasn’t angry at Gilbert at all, but... what was she going to do?

 

                Chaos was a good word to describe this. Yeah, chaos would do. Jillian had left her motorcycle back at the restaurant, partially out of the knowledge that the others had taken the Ecto-1 with them, and partially because she saw the pileup of traffic as people abandoned their cars for shelter against the ghosts. She passed an apparition sitting quietly at a bench, reading today’s newspaper. Jillian put her gun away, figuring a nice old man like him could be reasoned with.

                “Excuse me, sir, have you seen three other women dressed like me, driving a car with sirens on top of it?”

                The ghost turned the page of his newspaper, “I think they were headed towards the Mercado, but Slimer took their car.”

                “Who?”

                “Oh you’d like him,” the elderly gentleman said, his glowing eyes not leaving the crossword puzzle, “A real firecracker, that one.”

                Jillian tugged on her braid, “Um... well... thanks.”

                “You have a good day, now! Well, what’s left of it.”

                Damn the packs were heavy— there was a reason they used a car to haul all this equipment around. Abby wasn’t joking about the compacting spinal column, either. Holtzmann shifted her shoulders and sighed, letting the device in her pocket thump against her leg as she ran. She knew where the Mercado was, but judging by the giant vortex swirling around the hotel, it would be a bad idea to head towards it alone. She ducked down a side alley and passed some crying people.

                “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve got this!” she shouted after them.

                “Crazy bitch!”

                “’Thank you’ would have worked, too,” Jillian muttered.

                There was some sort of parade going on 34th Street, and Jillian realized with a sigh that it was a ghost version of a Macy’s Parade. She quickly ducked out of sight before hordes of ghosts could see her, and saw something that looked suspiciously like proton streams in her peripheral vision.

                Watching the other three Ghostbusters get squished by a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was actually hilarious, even if she’d never admit to their faces.

                Jillian put her proton gun back onto her pack and grabbed the device she’d built earlier. The invention extended into a baton and set alight with the same energy that powered their guns. She slashed the Stay Puft monster in the side and watched it deflate. Underneath, Abby, Patty, and Gilbert were wiping rocks out of their cheeks and letting their eardrums stop ringing. Jillian leaned down and pulled up the physicist by the wrists.

                “I made you a cool toy, in case you need a cane during the bust. It... it also functions as a proton sword... if you’re in a pinch...” Jillian stammered.

                Gilbert grinned, “Making kabobs just got a whole lot easier.”

                “No. No! Nuclear stick!”

                “Let’s go save this city and get our terrible receptionist back! We’re not going to find another one that pretty!” Abby commanded, giving Jillian a pat on the shoulder.

                They got as close to the Mercado before Times Square was turned into some sort of sick, twisted battleground by Rowan.

                “Welcome to the glory days of New York City!” a possessed Kevin’s voice shouted. “Have fun!”

                Gilbert pulled out her gun, “I’ve always wanted to fight someone.”

                “Now’s your chance.”    

                Dr. Holtzmann tugged on her braid and took a deep breath, her anxiety catching up with her, “G-Guys, you all have your sidearms... you should probably... you know...”

                Patty rested a hand on a trembling Jillian’s shoulder, “We’ll get through this, Holtzy, don’t you worry.”

                “Power up!”

                Jillian shot stream after stream of nuclear energy at the ghosts, feeling remorseful for bothering these entities that were once people. The others worked together, slicing ghosts in half and tossing them into the air. It must’ve been amazing to watch, if there were still any living humans hiding in the nearby buildings. She tossed a grenade at a pilgrim ghost picking Gilbert up ( _“NO, I don’t have time to hear about your lord and savior, sir!”_ ), the latter laughing as she fell on her ass when he dissipated. Then, Dr. Holtzmann felt herself knocked down as none other than Laverne from the Stonebrook Theatre began to advance on her. This was it, she was going to die—

                “I got you, baby! IT’S CHIPPIN’ TIME! And this is what you get for sitting on me!”

                There was something truly horrifying, watching the shredding tool turn a monster to bits, and knowing that she’d come up with that. She stood up and caught her breath, “Thanks Patty.”

                Unfortunately, the historian was slammed into a nearby van, and the useful ghost chipper was stomped on. Abby and Jillian continued using their proton guns on the ghosts in the air, but out of the corner of her eye, the engineer saw two familiar ghosts.

                “The return of Gertrude Aldridge and... nameless prisoner!” Gilbert shrieked excitedly. “I brought you a party favor!”

                Jillian simply stood there and witnessed Gilbert become trigger happy with the gun that she’d improved. She didn’t know that a cackle could sound so amazing, as Gilbert fired the hand cannon and made that exact noise.

                “I LOVE THIS THING!” she called to the engineer, “I WANT SEVEN.”

                The tallest ghost, who’d been watching the battle from the fog he’d conjured, began shrieking in anger and approaching the group. Gilbert reached over and pressed the button on Dr. Holtzmann’s armband, activating the proton pistols that she’d built for herself last week.

                “D-Do I have to?” she trembled. “He’s awfully tall.”

                Gilbert grabbed the nearest pistol in Jillian’s left hand and kissed it for ‘good luck’, “Go get ‘em, lioness.”

                Jillian was nervously shaking as she whipped the proton streams at the various ghosts around her. All the memories of the Ghostbusters working together as a family rushed through her, and she felt a small surge of strength. Family. They’d shown her what it meant to... love. She suddenly got angry at Rowan, at Columbia, and at every person who’d ever told her who she had to be. One glance back at Abby and Patty punching ghosts, and then one at Gilbert singing random Mary Lambert lyrics aloud as she decapitated a Confederate soldier. She could do this.

                The engineer aimed her pistols up at the tall, magician-like ghost and poured all of her energy into fighting him. Poor bastard didn’t stand a chance.

                She stuttered as she glanced at his remains, “You... um... yeah! Suck it!”

                “You just got Holtzmanned, baby,” Gilbert said, sliding up to Jillian and throwing an arm around her shoulders.

                “Y-Yeah! You just got— I like that!”

                She wasn’t a fan of the armed forces, but it was pretty horrible to see them all frozen in humiliating positions. They weaved through the creepy version Mannequin Challenge and Gilbert moved Agent Rourke’s finger so it was sticking up his nose ( _“What? No one calls me a phony scientist and gets away with it scot-free!”_ ).

                The Ecto-1 drove past them, filled with ghosts. Jillian winced as it slammed into a police cruiser and then kept going. One of the bumpers was beginning to fall off, and she was pretty sure that three of the four doors were missing.  

                “Well that thing’s having the time of its life.”

                “I was gone for like three hours, guys, and you lost an entire car?” Jillian asked.

                Patty nodded, “Abby also threw Gilbert out of the window.”

                “ _What?!_ ”

                “We’ve fought worse,” the physicist smiled. “Abby, you remember that one time in high school when I accidentally ran you over with two goats and a Ford Pinto?”

                “Save it for later, Erin.”

                Gilbert leaned over and whispered to Jillian, “We’re permanently banned from Lansing, Michigan because of it.”

 

.               .               .

 

                They got Kevin back, at least, but Rowan was turning into a giant version of their adorable logo— so colossal that he was destroying the Mercado with his very body. They ran as fast as they could, and Jillian prayed to deities belonging to multiple denominations that they wouldn’t be crushed by his feet. Ducking into an alley, they came up with the plan to run back to the Mercado and shut down the machine. Unfortunately, when he’d crushed the hotel, he’d also caused debris to destroy the stairs leading down into the basement.

                Patty saved them, coming up with the idea that if they sent the car into the portal, it would cause a total reversal of the polarity— a giant ghost trap.

                “And you said a nuclear reactor on top of a car wouldn’t come in handy some day!” Gilbert beamed.

                “I had a pretty good reason to say that,” Jillian grumped, aiming her proton gun at the Ecto-1.

                It worked perfectly, the energy of the portal becoming a giant vacuum. Ghosts flew overhead, and she’d never seen a more beautiful sight. No, wait, when they shot giant Rowan in the balls, _that_ was when she’d never seen a more beautiful sight. He tripped over a fire engine and began to dive into the portal headfirst. And he reached out for Abby.

                “Abby!”

                “No!”

                They all stood there as he pulled her in, the portal beginning to close. Gilbert rushed towards the fire engine, tied something around her waist and then dashed to the frozen engineer.

                “Wish me luck, Jilly.”

                “What are y—”

                She was cut off by a pair of lips pressing against her own, fingers threaded through her loosened blonde hair. Jillian closed her eyes for a moment, and then Gilbert pulled away to sprint towards the portal.

                “Hey! I’m... I’m straight, you jerk!” Dr. Holtzmann called after her, a bewildered expression on her face.

                They got to work, tugging with all their strength in the hopes that they could rescue Abby and Gilbert from another dimension. When Patty and Jillian managed to pull the other two women out of the Mercado, Jillian’s hands burning from the rope, she pulled Gilbert to her feet and gave her a crushing hug. Snow white hair tickled her nose and Jillian put a hand between the physicist’s shoulder and her proton pack to bring her closer.

                “Stop doing that,” Jillian sighed into Gilbert’s collar.

                “What, putting myself in danger or making you question your—”

                “ _Gilbert_.”

                “Alright, alright. You have my word. Let me see your phone,” Gilbert asked, checking her hair in the reflection, “Oh... oh I’m keeping this look! How long were we gone? Please tell me it’s 2020.”

                Patty shook her head, “Nope, you still gotta deal with you-know-who.”

                “Dammit, put me back in the ghost world!”

                “Well,” Abby sighed, leaning up against a police cruiser, “We did it.”

                “Yeah, we did it!”

                “That’s right, we all did it!” Kevin smiled, taking a bite out of a sandwich. They didn’t have the heart to tell him.

 

.               .               .

 

                Jillian nervously stood in the bar, unsure of how the others were going to react. Her glass of beer trembled a little in her hands, and she wished that they’d ordered shots instead. She was too sober to admit feelings, but after everything that happened, she wouldn’t keep them from knowing the truth;

                “I’d like to make a toast.”

                “Oh hear we go,” Abby smirked.

                “When I was... kissing ass at Columbia, I hated every minute of everyday. I just... I felt as though I was living someone else’s life, that I wasn’t meant to be there. Even the opportunity of CERN, however tempting it was, just didn’t seem like a place I could act myself, without someone telling me to sit a certain way or dress ten years older than I really was. And I’ll admit, when I met you, I hated you— not you Patty, them.”

                “Yeah, that’s fair,” Abby muttered, sipping her beer.

                “Anyways... I followed you to Aldridge Mansion, got slimed on, and found myself again. I don’t know who that person is yet, but I’m kind of exited to meet her— it felt like Columbia was keeping her locked behind a door that you guys opened for me. All the times we’ve almost died together, all the inventions and discoveries, and too many occasions where a snake has peed on me. I... I’ve loved every minute of it, and I wouldn’t trade it for a thing,” Jillian solemnly said.

                She hadn’t realized that she’d been looking at Gilbert for most of the speech, and quickly glanced towards Patty to clink her glass before sitting down at the table.

                “Thank you so much!” a voice in the background interrupted. Jennifer Lynch sat at the table and warily eyed both Gilbert and Dr. Holtzmann, who both held up their hands, free of reptiles. “You saved everyone! The Mayor thanks you for your service, privately of course. In fact, we’d like you to continue studying this subject. We have to be better prepared, in case of emergencies.”

                “Yeah, that’d be smart.”

                “Whatever you want,” Lynch said with certainty in her voice, “Fully funded.”

                “Anything?”

                “Anything.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quoth the Raven, "Jilly, that's gay."
> 
> Leave more comments, please! I need them to keep writing this because I thrive off of human interaction!!


	7. Good Cop. Bad Cop. Totally Not Sexually Frustrated Cop.

 

 

 

                A sense of familiarity washed over the group like healing storms on dry rainfore—

                “Hey, have you seen Gerard?” Gilbert asked, popping out of the bathroom. She was wearing a salmon-colored bath towel around her core and had her ghost white hair done up in a sloppy bun, with loose strands falling everywhere.

                Jillian sighed, “Don’t you dare tell me you have another pet.”

                “No, he’s my rubber duckie.”

                “You’re forty-three,” the engineer said, not bothering to glance up from her work.

                “He’s very important to me. Our bath time sessions are therapeutic.”

                “Check on Kevin’s desk, he likes to collect random trinkets, and he may have seen... Gerard... lying around. Before you go, do you have that equation so I can begin testing my hypobaric ghost trap?”

                Gilbert waddled out in her towel and tried to write the rest of the equation on the white board she’d set up in Dr. Holtzmann’s perfectly neat laboratory. When the physicist realized that she couldn’t handle her marker, her cane, and her towel at the same time, she dropped the fabric.

 

                A naked bisexual in _her_ laboratory? It was more likely than you think.

 

                Jillian whirled her office chair around as quick as she could so that she was looking out the window instead, trying to ignore Gilbert’s playful humming as the older woman went to work on the equation. Jillian angrily folded her arms, knowing that this was another attempt by Gilbert to get her to... she didn’t want to think about that right now. She didn’t want to think about anything right now, least of all Erin Gilbert standing naked in her laboratory solving complex mathematical equations... Erin biting down on that marker and running her fingers through the loose white strands of hair falling down her face... Erin without her usual funky attires, and instead a pure palate of skin and curves...

                “I could have waited for you to finish your bath,” Jillian grumbled.

                “No worries. Interestingly enough, a lack of clothing can be epiphanic when it comes to mathematics. One of my exes also specialized in particle physics; we would talk in bed about calculations for days.”

                Abby came up the steps, and Jillian was about to warn her when she heard, “I didn’t know you had a tattoo on your thigh, when did you get that?”

                The engineer began to turn around out of curiosity, but corrected herself. She stood and moved closer to the window, starting to count crows on nearby rooftops as Abby and a stark-naked Gilbert made small talk.

                “Jillian, can you come over here and ratify these numbers?” Gilbert asked.

                “I’m sure they’re fine.”

                “Uh-uh, that’s not the scientific approach. Get over here and do your duty to keep our world safe from ghosts.”

                Jillian stared at every single machine in the lab as she made her way towards the white board. Abby sat down at a nearby desk and began working on their new and improved website— not giving a crap about Gilbert’s blatant nudity. She managed to make it to the board and put her face three inches away from the numbers, protectively folding her arms across her chest and sighing inaudibly.

                “I think I did everything right, but it’s always good to have another pair of eyes check,” Gilbert said next to her. “What do you think about this here, I factored it out but I think it might not apply to your measurements, and I’m worried that it’ll mess up the rest of the equation.”

                “No, I’m sure I’ll need it.” Jillian squeaked.

                “Hey, Erin, is this your rubber duck?” Kevin asked, stomping up the stairs. “Oh, that’s a really nice tattoo.”

                “Thank you, Kev,” the physicist said, reaching for the duckie. “I love Gertrude Stein’s work, so I figured I’d get one of my favorite quotes of hers and put it on my leg.”

                “Why is there a dandelion with it?”

                “The quote, Kev, ‘ _A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose’_. The flower on my leg is red, sweetie.”

                “You need new glasses, Erin, that’s yellow,” Kevin smiled, heading down the stairs.

                Enough was enough; if Jillian wanted to prove her heterosexuality, she needed to desexualize the situation. So, she looked down at the end of Gilbert’s equation and analyzed the placement of every number... aha! There was no way she could have carried this digit over logically, meaning the answer of her calculation was incorrect.

                “You missed two placements right here,” Jillian said, looking Gilbert directly in the eye.

                “Oh! Let me fix that.”

                Dr. Holtzmann was not planning for the older woman to bend down and fix the numbers, and she did everything she could not to think of the implications of this position. She was one-hundred percent heterosexual and harboring more-than-platonic thoughts about this other woman and her body would only prove one Erin Gilbert right. Jillian never like losing fights. You’ve heard of good cop. You’ve heard of bad cop. Jillian was going to play the bored cop.

                “Do you need anything else before I head out?” she asked in a flat tone.

                Gilbert stretched and let out a sleepy morning groan, and Jillian couldn’t help but glance down, her toes curling when she realized that Gilbert. Was. Ripped.

                Shredded.

                Buff.

                She could beat up the patriarchy with that body.

                Jillian honestly couldn’t believe this, red flooding to her cheeks. The poor woman retreated to her desk, listening to Gilbert pick up her towel and head back into the bathroom of their firehouse. She sighed as soon as the door shut and ignored Abby laughing her ass off. There was a sharp noise interrupting the peace of the lab, her phone had buzzed on the desk, she picked it up and announced that she was going to go out and grab some burritos from the nearby market— Jillian pulled the cell out of her coat pocket and checked her messages outside of the firehouse.

                **Rebecca Gorin (4:29 PM):** _I’m in town, and I was wondering if you like to show me around your new laboratory?_

 

.               .               .

 

                “Jilly, why are you so nervous?”

                “Because she’s basically my mo— she was really important to me in college and I don’t want to disappoint her because I’m no longer working at Columbia!”

                “Baby,” Patty sighed, “I think she’s more excited to come see what you’re doing with ghosts than some stuffy teaching position where you didn’t even have access to Columbia’s labs.”

                “You know the more I think about it, the more I realize it was a gender thing?”

                Abby nodded and patted Jillian’s shoulder, “It was a gender thing, babe.”

                “It’s just... I... Dr. Gorin was the only one there for me... for so long.”

                Gilbert slid a can of hard apple cider across the table towards the engineer, then gave Abby a beer and Patty the bottle of Jack Daniels and the cans of Coke Zero. For herself, she merely uncorked the wine that she occasionally took to the lab with her, drinking straight from the bottle. Fridays, you know? Jillian opened the tab and leaned back in her seat, letting Mrs. Nesbitt crawl up her arm.

                After their poker match ( _Rounds Won— Patty: 5, Abby: 2, Jillian: 3, Gilbert: - 7_ ), Jillian walked up the stairs and lounged around in her lab. She knew that if she started building something, anxiety would keep her in the lab all night. And she was on her third cider, which wasn’t the optimal condition to be fiddling with blowtorches and electrical components. And nuclear energy in general. A tapping sound caught her interest, and she turned to the source of the noise.

                “I was wondering if you wanted to watch a movie with me?” Gilbert asked, leaning on her cane at the top of the stairs.

                “Yeah. Yeah! Sure! W-What do you want to watch?”

                “This is one about an office-worker who becomes a secret agent as she tries to stop a nuke; it’s an action movie, but I think it might be comedy as well.”

                “Sounds perfect. Good! It sounds good!” Jillian corrected.            

                Jillian moved the big couch that Gilbert usually used in her equation area for nap times across the wooden floor to the flat-screen TV she had installed two weeks prior. There were incredible perks to having the Mayor fund your business. Gilbert sat down and pressed the button on the top of the cane that let it collapse into a small tube that she could stick in a purse. In some alternate universe where Gilbert used purses.

                The movie started up, and they were already thumping the cushions in laughter within ten minutes. Gilbert passed her box of Cheez-Its to Jillian throughout the film in lieu of popcorn. At some point, Jillian found herself growing tired from a day’s stress. She leaned up against Gilbert (platonically) and let every part of her relax for the first time since the Rowan Incident™. Gilbert wrapped her arms (platonically) around Jillian’s middle and rested her cheek on Jillian’s blond hair (platonically), letting out a sigh. They both drifted asleep together (platonically) as the credits began rolling—

                “Ah! Shit!” Gilbert whimpered.

                Jillian sat up and rubbed her eyes before glancing at the clock; it was one-fifty-four in the morning. She looked at the physicist, “You okay?”

                “My leg is acting up. Can you help me to my room?”

                Jillian reached for the cane and stuffed it in her back pocket before gently pulling Gilbert to her feet, whispering “easy does it” and “one foot at a time” to encourage her friend. Every time the other woman whimpered, something flinched inside of Jillian. She wanted to find the bastard who t-boned Gilbert and punch him in the face.

                They made it up the stairs and Jillian opened the door to Gilbert’s bedroom; the place was chock full of art supplies and posters of famous book covers. And it honestly didn’t surprise her to see both a rock and cactus collection on the shelves. Mrs. Nesbitt was resting in one tank, and across the room Skyscraper was buried in a bowl of sand, a little nose poking out her bowl for air. The place was... entropic, rather than messy— random rather than sloppy.

                “As much as I love having an arm around you, it really hurts to stand,” Gilbert winced.

                “Right, sorry.”

                Holtzmann brought her to the bed and let her gently sit down before fetching some water and pain relievers.

                “I always imagined this scenario going differently,” Gilbert said, stopping to groan in pain. “Some Marvin Gaye, a few hundred candles, maybe a meal cooked while we enjoy the sunset together.”

                Jillian threw the covers over Gilbert and ruffled her hair playfully, “I’d sooner kiss a lizard.”

                The physicist laughed, “I can arrange that.”  

                “Goodnight, G— Erin.”

                “Goodnight, Jilly.”

               

.               .               .

 

                “And, as you can see, I’ve placed supports that run across the ceiling with a counterweight system on the northern wall, allowing for perfect suspension of certain machines, utilizing more workspace and freeing up enough room in the lab for our next project; a chamber where we can properly study the aspirations without worry of escape. We just attach our traps like those cool tubes at drive-thru banks and the ghost is given free roam of a six by six by six chamber.”

                “This is responsible, Jillian. All someone has to do is so much as photograph the lab, and you could be eligible for a reward.”

                “Yes, it’s... stable, to say the least.”

                Dr. Gorin wandered towards the x-ray system that Jillian bartered for a week’s worth of busting in Bellevue Hospital Center (the ghosts had passed on pre-Affordable Care Act, and weren’t happy with the bills that their parents still owed the emergency rooms). Jillian smoothed out her lab coat and checked in a mirror on the wall that she looked alright, not wanting to seem lazy or misshapen in the presence of... well... her adoptive mother.

                “You have an exceptional amount of safety lights,” Dr. Gorin noted.

                “Thank you, Doctor. I know you always said they were for... gentlemen scientists... but I would feel immensely guilty if something were to happen to one of the team members that I could have prevented with some cautioned construction—”

                “... and anyways, the car payment loans for Mr. Tolan’s new hearse are going to cut into our tech budget, so we’re going to let her down gently,” Abby warned.

                “I already told you, I have plenty saved up from the accident! I can forward some dough for the car,” Gilbert said, her cane tapping along the concrete.

                “Erin, either we all equally pay for this business, or none of us do— oh! Jill, you didn’t tell us that your company had already arrived. Welcome to the Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination; or as the public knows us, the Ghostbusters,” Abby smiled, shaking Dr. Gorin’s hand.

                “This is Abby and that’s Erin,” Dr. Holtzmann nodded, picking up a drill to put back in its usual spot. “Two of my exceptional colleagues in the ghost-hunting business.”

                Erin shook Dr. Gorin’s hand as well, adding, “I’m Jilly’s girlfriend.”             

                _SMASH!_

                She hadn’t meant for the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar drill to escape her fingers, and they were fairly strong tools, but there was no mistaking the snap of plastic and tinkling of metal components as the tool crashed against the floor. Abby and Dr. Gorin looked downright mortified, but Gilbert only looked regretful in those few seconds where time did not pass. Jillian couldn’t register any noise but her own breathing as she bolted out of the lab, passing Kevin on the phone, who gave her a thumbs-up, and Patty in the kitchen who nearly broke the fridge door off turning to see what was wrong. Dr. Holtzmann felt pure force rattle her bones as she hurriedly pushed the main door to their firehouse open and disappeared into the snowy November night.

 

                 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ak;lajsdf;klasdkl;jfkl;asdfjkl;asdkjf
> 
> I hope you guy fries and gal pals enjoyed this loving, kind chapter that I whipped up. Art is by the lovely rootproxy (give 'em a round of applause)!
> 
> Leave some comments for the comment fairy. She'll put a quarter under your pillow. Maybe. Probably not.


	8. Austin Keith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Suicide, abuse, alcohol, throwing up, internalized homophobia

 

 

                She slumped against the wall of the alleyway, unsure of where she was and feeling as sick as a dog. Maybe it was dramatic, but her body was trying to expel that night’s dinner, and Jillian obeyed without protest. The snow-covered streets were practically empty, and the alley she’d ducked into even more so, therefore the poor girl felt no shame in throwing up behind a stack of wooden pallets. The burning sensation only amplified the tears streaming down her face, and her body shook with a multitude of emotions; anger, fear, uncertainty, regret, and self-disgust to name a few.

                Jillian felt a little bad; this was someone’s alley, probably the restaurant she’d just passed. She needed a place to hide, but food seemed absolutely unappetizing. She huddled her arms closer to her stomach and cursed herself for not grabbing a coat.

                “Jill! Come back!”

                Oh no. That was not the voice she wanted to hear— poor sweet Erin Gilbert who just wanted to poke fun at Jillian, who didn’t understand why Jillian couldn’t ever be anything but heterosexual. She just didn’t understand. Dr. Holtzmann turned down another street and found a small public library that would be open for a few more hours. She quickly ran up the steps and disappeared inside. There was warmth and silence inside a library, the two things that she truly needed right now so that she could sit and think about what Gilbert had said. The consequences of saying such things in front of Dr. Gorin.

                This library had study rooms, where groups could sit together and make noise without bothering the rest of the patrons. Jillian pushed the door to one open and sat down in an old chair from the eighties. She didn’t know what to do, so she sat there with her mouth gaping and a tearstain threatening to dry on her cheek.

                Jillian closed her eyes and thought about Austin for the first time in a decade.

 

.               .               .

 

                _There was a time when her hair was wild and out of control, sticking through the holes in her helmet as she tried to catch up on this fantastically sunny day after school._

_“Come on! It’s just past this road!” the scrawny boy called from his bike._

_Holtzmann kept pedaling, playing with the broken gears so she could try and catch up to her new friend; a boy who’d moved to her county last summer. They’d met at school a few weeks into the fall semester, and were already the best of friends, having four out of six classes together. Her backpack thumped against her shoulders, and she quickly pulled on the cords to adjust the straps. Finally, her bike shifted gears and she began pedaling faster and faster until she’d caught up with Austin._

_Together, they turned down a road that led to the Audubon Center, and behind it a huge park with miles of paved trails for bikers and hikers alike. Austin led her onto a trail that ran parallel with the river, and they managed to make it half a mile before Holtzmann wanted to stop._

_“I should not have brought my English text book home with me. My mom probably has a copy in her study.”_

_Austin laughed, “It builds character!”_

_They ditched their bikes and backpacks at a spot nearby and rolled up their pants, stomping around in the river and looking for salmon smolt ready to swim out to the ocean after growing from eggs in the river. When Holtzmann felt something living rub against her shin, she went flying back towards the sandy bank with a yelp, ignoring her best friend laughing his ass off. Austin found a lazy stretch of water just a few trees down, and together they began skipping stones._

_“So are you going to the Summer Dance?”_

_“I dunno,” Austin shrugged. “I wouldn’t know who to ask.”_

_“If you need a partner, I wasn’t planning on going, but I can spot you,” Holtzmann offered, bending her legs and sending a stone flying across the still water._

_“I thought Jesse McDonald was going to ask you.”_

_“Who’s he?”_

_“She’s a senior who told blonde Taylor Christian who told Mariah King who told Mrs. Brandt who told my dad who told me that she was going to ask you to the dance.”_

_“A girl asking another girl to the dance?”_

_“Why not?”_

_“It just seems... I don’t know... different? Like, they make fun of that kind of stuff on TV all the time!”_

_“You’ll live! Besides, she’s really pretty! Only, if she kisses you, watch out for her retainer. I saw her in gym class the other day take it out and just leave it on the bleachers.”_

_“Austin!”_

_“What? I’m just saying.”_

_“I’ve never thought of girls like that... do you think of guys like that?”_

_Austin laughed and laughed and laughed, “All the time! That’s why I sought you out on the fourth day of school! I thought you were gay too!”_

_Holtzmann sat in the sand and looked at him with a mischievous smile, “I’m not gay!”_

_He sat down next to her, “Prove it! Try kissing me! I bet you that you won’t feel a thing!”_

_“You can’t be serious!”_

_“The Holtzmann I know never backs down from a dare!”_

_She couldn’t stop smiling as she took a deep breath and cupped his cheek, but as soon as her lips met his, she realized that he was one-hundred-percent right. There was no feeling in the gesture, and she broke away with a confused pout that made Austin erupt into giggles. She stared at the river and tried to make sense of why she didn’t feel anything towards boys, and the more she thought of Jesse McDonald asking her to the dance, the more Holtzmann wanted to say yes— just to see what would happen._

_“I told you!”_

_“Well... that... huh?”_

_“Go to the library, there’s a section in the back all about this stuff! Just don’t let anyone see you,” Austin laughed, pulling her to her feet, “By the way, if I wasn’t gay, I’d say you were a good kisser.”_

               

.               .               .

 

                Jillian’s phone rang, and she pressed the **Ignore Call** button for the third time that night. She didn’t want to think about Gilbert, and the prompt declaration of a relationship between the two women, when there wasn’t so much as a hint of reciprocation from Jillian’s end. She needed something to do, to distract herself from the problems she was going through. Jillian opened up the internet browser on her phone and decided to look through the news.

                And then she had the strangest feeling, as though there was something she needed to look up, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. So, she clicked the off button on her phone, folded her arms, and leaned back in her seat.

                Dr. Holtzmann had about an hour before the library closed.

 

.               .               .

 

                _Austin’s back yard was perfectly green, not a single patch of dead grass. And soft— Holtzmann could fall asleep here if it weren’t for the fact that it rained in their state a lot. She turned her head towards Austin;_

_“What do you want to do when you grow up?”_

_He shrugged, “Help people. I figured I’d go to college first and then figure it out. What do you want to do?”_

_“Science. It’s why I’m doing the state fair again this year,” Holtzmann smirked. “I’m going to build a car that can be controlled by my mom’s Nokia 5110.”_

_“No way.”_

_“Yeah! I read all about what they can do now with RC stuff in one of my mom’s magazi—”_

_“AUSTIN! WE NEED TO TALK!”_

_His father was standing behind the back door screen, so all Holtzmann could see was a silhouette. The screen door opened, and a huge man wearing a filthy gray tank top— holding a liquor bottle in one hand and clenching a magazine with muscular, half naked men on the cover in the other— leaned against the frame. He asked Austin to come inside with a growling voice. Both of the kids stood up from their sky gazing position the grass, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Austin shaking._

_“You should probably go,” he muttered._

_Holtzmann felt horrible, but she got up and scrambled away, glancing at Mr. Keith— who narrowed his eyes at her— and slipping through the fence that led to the front yard. She set her bike upright and got on it, flinching when she heard shouting inside the house. Holtzmann wanted to go back inside, but she was worried that Mr. Keith would yell at her... or hit her, even._

_She decided to bike home and tell her mom. Her mom would be able to do something about this for sure. But when her mom asked Holtzmann how her day was going upon arriving home, she said she was fine. She didn’t know why she lied, but it would haunt her for years when she learned what happened to Austin._

 

.               .               .

 

                Jillian had a new message. She finally caved and opened it, turning down the brightness on her phone and sighing as she read the text. It was from the physicist, of course, and she noticed that everyone else had been sending her texts in the past hour, including Kevin.

 

 **Gilbert (7:13 PM):** Jillian, I am so, so sorry for what I did. It was a bad joke of me to pull, and I want to apologize to you face-to-face. Where are you? I can pick you up with the Ecto-2.

 **Gilbert (7:20 PM):** Jill, it’s not safe to be out in the dark like this, and you don’t have a coat. Come home, please.

 **Abby (7:07 PM):** Hey, listen, I know she can be a little goofy sometimes, but Gilbert didn’t mean this to hurt your feelings. She was just fooling around and slipped up.

 **Patty (7:24 PM):** Baby, if you need a break from the firehouse, no one’s going to judge you. Remember that we love you.

 **Kevin (7:19 PM):** We’re out of toilet paper on the first floor.

 **Kevin (7:22 PM):** We’re out of toilet paper on the second floor as well.

 

                She turned her phone off without replying to any of them, instead choosing to stand and go to the restroom. The burning feeling from when she’d thrown up in that alley was still prevalent in her throat, and she took a long gulp from the drinking fountain before heading back into the study room she’d been hiding in. The only difference was that Dr. Gorin was now sitting at the table, with a box of parts in her lap. Jillian realized very slowly that the contents of the box were the drill she’d accidentally broken before fleeing the firehouse. There were also some do-it-yourself books resting on the table, and Jillian couldn’t for the life of her figure out why either of them would need to read those elementary level picture books.

                “I thought I might find you here. You wanna help me fix this?” Rebecca smiled, patting the chair next to her, “I asked the librarians, under the pretense I was going to use their books to fix this, and they said it was okay as long as we stay in here, keep it down, and don’t make a mess.”

                Dr. Holtzmann didn’t say anything, sitting down next to her and unscrewing the tool’s outer shell with a small flathead. She began to think about Austin again, not even distracted by the familiar presence of her mother next to her.

 

.               .               .

 

                _There was a time when she had all her friends call her by her last name for fun, but then she asked people to call her “Jillian”. No one could figure it out, until someone pointed out that she began requesting the change right after the suicide._

_The school held a funeral for Austin Keith, and she’d decided not to go. Everyone was surprised about that one; weren’t they best friends, sitting together at every lunch? Weren’t they always hanging out on the bleachers together? Everyone assumed that they were dating, but perhaps the shock was too much to deal with._

_She climbed up to the top of the bleachers on the day of the funeral, and she merely sat there, electing to not feel a single emotion. Eventually, she began to think of Austin nudging her and pointing out Jesse and Katy and Serena and... the pretty new girl who’d moved to school a few days prior. And then all of a sudden, she felt a tremendous amount of guilt— how could she be thinking of crushes and dating girls when her best friend had killed himself for being gay? How could she do that to him? The guilt was too much to bear, and Jillian ran towards the side of the bleachers as something began building in her throat. She leaned over the side and threw up her breakfast._

_Over the next years, despite the adults around her claiming that she was naturally copping with the loss, every time she thought of Austin... or suicide... or being gay, it would cause her to throw up or shut down for days. Sometimes both. So, she stopped thinking about him altogether. It was better this way, easier._

_She never dated in college, neither boys nor girls. Never kissed anyone. Never had sex. Barely drank beyond the pathetic socials that her astronomy club held. She kept her sight focused on graduating from MIT’s stellar engineering program and didn’t look back. For some reason, Jillian took a cryptids class in her sophomore year for GUR credits, and found it rather interesting, but beyond that... nothing seemed to make her feel alive again. The doctor recommended therapy, which she instantly refused, and medicine, which she began taking. Within six months she began to forget about taking her prescription, and within eight Jillian had fallen too deep back into depression to have the will to return to her doctor._

.               .               .

 

                “I wasn’t the best parent,” Rebecca said, flipping through the pages of an architecture book and neglecting eye contact with Jillian. “If I had been, you would’ve felt more comfortable talking to me about Austin’s situation. Your father always warned me that I was more into my work than our family, and maybe he was right. Hell, you don’t even refer to me as your mother to your friends. I should have known I didn’t do enough—”

                “Mom. I don’t want to— I’m not feeling so good,” Jillian sighed.

                “If you would like, you can stay at the hotel with me tonight.”

                The engineer shook her head, “No, I need to go back to the lab. I run a procedure every night before going to sleep to make sure the ghosts are properly contained.”

                “That’s why you got into this business, isn’t it? So you could find Austin?”

                Jillian glanced down at the drill, feeling as though her mother’s stare was burning holes into her skin. Tears fell from her eyes and she nodded, “As soon as I found out they were real... I didn’t want to take any chances. I want to find him if he’s out there. I want to tell him how sorry I am.”

                Her mother gently took the pieces of the drill out of her hand, and put them into the box on the table. She then pulled Jillian by her wrists to her feet, ever so gently. Dr. Holtzmann fell into her mother’s arms and cried for a solid ten minutes. When she was done, Rebecca stroked her hair and whispered how proud she was of Jillian, how much she loved her. They left the library together, and Jillian even checked out a book to make the space feel more appreciated. Dr. Gorin still had the same pickup truck that she’d raised her daughter in, and they drove back to the lab with an air of understanding silence hovering between them. She waved her mother goodnight and pushed open the door to the firehouse.

                Kevin was asleep in the hammock he’d set up— despite the others insisting that they had a bedroom he could use. She sat down at the kitchen table and stared at him sleeping for a while, sipping on one of Abby’s cold beers and trying to analyze what she felt inside.

                That was just it, she felt nothing when she looked at Kevin, and he was about the hottest you could find. Maybe she wasn’t feeling attraction towards him because, well, let’s face it. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. But wouldn’t some part of her still feel blatant desire for him if she was heterosexual?

                Someone tediously sat across from her, nervously drumming their fingers on the table’s wooden surface.

                “Hey Gilbert.”

                “I... I’m so sorry,” the other woman whispered, staring at the floor. “I just fool around, and sometimes I don’t think about other people. I need to learn how to stop being so...”

                “No.”

                “Wha— what’s a no?”

                Jillian took a sip of her beer and one last look at Kevin snoring near the front desk, then she turned to Gilbert, “Don’t stop being you. You’re what makes this team possible, and it would be a complete disaster if we didn’t have someone with a terrific sense of humor like you. Someone who just... doesn’t care about what the rest of the world thinks. Don’t... don’t worry about what you said. It’s in the past now.”

                “A-Are we still friends?” Gilbert asked.

                Jillian downed the rest of her beer, grateful for the taste to distract her from the burning sensation of having thrown up earlier. She then stood and put a hand on Gilbert’s shoulder, “Of course. I’m going to go to bed and... I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

                “Goodnight.”

                “Goodnight to you as well,” Jillian smiled.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that we had chapter that wasn't funny, but it's like ripping a bandaid off. You just gotta do it. Next chapter will be 200% more funny than usual, I promise. 
> 
> Please leave comments.
> 
> Edit: For clarity, Gorin is Jillian's foster mom, Jillian's dad was occasionally part of the picture but couldn't always afford to take care of Jillian.


	9. Killed Them Dead

 

 

                Busts were her favorite part of her new job. The way they worked together to perfectly capture a ghost and save someone’s home, business, or even a few places of worship. Last night they had a bust in Bryant Park, and then this morning they were on call to investigate strange lights appearing in an apartment complex in Jackson Heights. Each and every bust was unique, whether it was the ghost or how they handled it, or the things that Gilbert said to keep them entertained.

                “You’d think this guy would have some holiday spirit!” she laughed, smacking the ghost in the face with her proton-cane, “Jilly? Jilly, did you get my joke?”

                “Yes, Gilbert.”

                “Don’t worry, you’ll get a visit from jolly Saint Nuclear, too,” Gilbert said to the other ghost in the house. “I’m all out of proton grenades, though.”

                “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO USE THOSE INDOORS!” Abby called from the hallway.

                “They’re only harmful to ghosts! Jilly said so!”

                “Don’t bring me into— aaa!”

                The first ghost picked Jillian up from behind and slammed her against the ceiling, the apparition harmlessly passing through. She’d had this happen before, though, so she knew to tuck her head and let her proton pack take the blunt of the force going up. She fell back to the floor with an “oof” and accepted help getting up from Gilbert.

                “You got the trap ready?” Patty asked from a room over.

                “Give us a second!”

                Gilbert fetched the trap off of Jillian’s pack while the latter caught her breath. Ghosts were... understandable in their hauntings, but nasty sometimes. She pressed a few buttons on Jillian’s armband and took out her proton gun. Abby and Patty joined them and they set out the bait; over the past few months they began to realize that ghosts had a strange attraction to mirrors— explaining the ones in Rowan’s lair. They set one up near the trap and waited for the two ghosts, even though the trap only really had capacity for one. Sure enough, the ghosts flew into the room and began swirling around the glass. Jillian pressed the button on her arm and the trap opened up, sucking them in.

                “Sorry,” she whispered.

                Jillian pressed the foot pedal and the trap shut tight. All of them sighed, and then when the trap rattled a little, they aimed their guns at it.

                “We brought a back-up, right?”

                “It’s in the car,” Gilbert shrugged. “The owners said there was only one ghost, but apparently had a buy-one-get-one-free deal that they didn’t tell us about.”

                The trap stilled, and Jillian was sure to click the extra security latch that she’d built into all of their containment units. She carried the trap out as Abby pointedly discussed payment with the owners of the place, who sheepishly apologized for lying about the intensity of the bust. Patty and Gilbert were loading up the car, and Gilbert started humming a strip tease as she took her pack off.

                “I could’ve made good money as a striper!” she defended, when Patty smacked her upside the head. “We have a firepole, I could always start practicing!”

                Jillian tried not to think about that as she put the trap in the back of the Ecto-2. Abby walked out of the house with a copy of the bill, sliding into shotgun and sighing. They rode back to the firehouse before they heard another _thump!_ in the back.

                “I thought the trap was secure,” Patty said, her grip on the steering wheel tightening.

                Jillian checked over her shoulder, “They might be fighting in there. I don’t know how much space is inside of those things. I imagine not much.”

                “Reminds me of the time Abby accidentally locked me in a storage unit when we were seventeen,” Gilbert reminisced, “I didn’t even have the joy of saying I was in the closet. But anyways, if I was trapped in a six-by-thirteen-inch canister with another dead person, I wouldn’t be sitting around.”

                They managed to make it home, and Jillian opened the back of the Ecto-2. She pulled the trap and checked the lock a third time. Then, she pulled out her proton gun, and threw the trap to the ground.

                “Holy shit!” Abby cursed, “What are you thinking?”

                “If the engineering is faulty, the ghosts leave and float off into the sky. If the trap is stable, nothing will happen.”

                Gilbert slid up next to her and brought the cane out, pressing the little button that turned it from a simple tool for getting around to a ghost weapon. The longer they stared at the trap, the more agonizing. Finally, it began rattling again. Jillian aimed down the barrel of her proton gun;

                “Get ready...”

                The trap exploded, but the ghosts didn’t escape— instead ectoplasm went flying everywhere (most notably all over Jillian) and two puddles of the goo fell onto the sidewalk. Jillian hated the smell of the stuff, and she merely lowered her gun and wiped her eyes off with an equally soaked sleeve. Abby and Patty couldn’t stop laughing, having to hold onto the doors of the Ecto-2 to keep from falling. Gilbert poked through the ectoplasm with her cane.

                “That... that was anticlimactic,” Jillian said, still trying to wipe the slime off her face.

                “You tried, Jilly,” Gilbert smiled, leading her through the firehouse door, “Let’s get you cleaned up. Can’t go to prom looking like that!”

                “We need bigger traps, more reinforcement, and I gotta make ‘em stop exploding,” Jillian sighed, as the physicist helped her take her pack off. A towel was thrown in her face, “I can’t believe it killed them— you know what I mean.”

                “Killed them dead,” Gilbert agreed.

                “You aren’t even covered in slim— WOAH! OH, EW!! It just slides down you!!”

                “Let’s get you into the shower. Here!” Gilbert smiled, tossing a bottle of baby powder, “I asked a chemist friend at the University of Michigan. They said if that doesn’t work, then use dish soap. Personally, I recommend Lush bombs, but you look like you wanna get that off as fast as possible.”

                “No,” Jillian said, ectoplasm dripping into her pants, “What makes you say that?”

                Gilbert smiled and pushed her into the bathroom, “Remember, if you leave your hair for last, it’ll crust! It’d be a cool look for all of three seconds, so get going!”

 

.               .               .

 

                “What are you working on?”

                “A drawing of today’s bust. Being slammed into the ceiling is a terrific angle for you.”

                Jillian sat down on the couch and kicked up her feet, patting a bit of water off of her temple with her towel before glancing up at Gilbert happily swaying to “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. She took a deep breath and then closed her mouth, unsure of how to ask the question.

                “No, Potter, I won’t sign your permission slip,” Gilbert said, breaking the silence.

                Jillian smiled, “That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

                “Spit it out, then.”

                “I just... I wanted to know when you realized you were bisexual. I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to...”

                Gilbert reached up to the perch Mrs. Nesbitt was sleeping on and retrieved a pencil from the reptile’s tail, “That’s a tough one, I’d have to go with that scene in Return of the Jedi with Princess Leia — not the one you’re thinking! I mean when the bounty hunter unfreezes Han Solo from his carbonite imprisonment, and then the bounty hunter takes off the helmet— and it’s Carrie Fisher in full armor.”

                “When did you first watch it, then?”

                “I college, Abby was really disturbed by my lack of faith and made me do a marathon. Don’t tell her that I like the prequel, too. She might kick my ass if she found out.”

                Jillian moved closer to the drawing and realized that the picture wasn’t of her getting thrown into the ceiling, nor was it a picture of the ghost trap exploding and Jillian getting covered in slime. It was all of them working to put two ghosts into a single trap, as told from Gilbert’s perspective. Jillian didn’t want to admit it aloud, but her face was much more detailed that Abby or Patty’s. She supposed that Gilbert wasn’t finished with the drawing yet, and went back to her comfy seat on the couch.

                “I would have abandoned a hobby like that for focusing on Columbia. I did, actually.”

                “You gave up sixteenth century Russian poetry, didn’t you?”

                “What?” Jillian laughed, shaking her head, “No, it was biking. I loved it to death in high school.”

                “Why didn’t you say so earlier? I go every Saturday to Central and back. You’re welcome to come with me.”

                “I don’t have a bike.”

                “You’re literally an engineer; just make one,” Gilbert said. “Quick question— should I make Abby’s hair pink or blue in this?”

                “I... uh... you’re the one with artistic creativity. Why? What color is my hair?”

                “I’m not saying.”

                Jillian stood to get a look and attempted to push Gilbert out of the way, though to the artist’s credit she fought back. Eventually, they were wrestling as Jillian tried to get a glimpse of what she was going to look like in the picture. Gilbert pushed Jillian onto the couch and fell on top of her.

                “I can’t believe you,” Dr. Holtzmann sighed.

                Gilbert sat upright and laughed, “I will not allow you to stifle my intellectual property.”

                “This better not go on our Facebook page without my permission.”

                “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Gilbert said.

                Jillian pretended not to notice the fingers crossed behind the physicist’s back. She headed upstairs for the night, with one last look at Mrs. Nesbit rolling around on the drawing while Gilbert searched for the correct shade of blue to color Abby. Mad scientists, the lot of them.

                 

.               .               .

               

                “I wanted to ask your help,” Jillian said, walking up to the white board.

                “Okay, I can get you a fake passport, but you have to wait three days. Do you have that long before they find you?”

                “Wha— no! No, I want to build a sun room on the roof so that we could be up there even when it’s raining, but I need another pair of hands.”

                “Oh. Alright then,” Gilbert shrugged.

                Jillian shook her head and let out a sigh, “Just help me do these measurements. We’ll have Kevin bring up the glass tomorrow. I... why do you know where to get fake passports?”

                “It’s a long story involving Abby, a school bus, and a mariachi band. And the state of Maine.”

                “I’m not even surprised at this point.”

                Gilbert opened the door to the roof and stretched, “So what do you want me to do?”

                “Just keep this here while I measure a few dimensions,” Jillian said, handing her the end of a tape measure. “I want to put up some chairs here, and maybe get a telescope at a thrift shop if I can find one. I know the store in Chelsea was grateful for the bust, maybe I can ask them if anything like that ever comes through.”

                “Don’t you want to draw up a plan first?”

                “I already used CAD to figure this out, I just need to check some proportions before I buy a bunch of materials. The Mayor won’t miss what he doesn’t know about.”

                The next day they were ready to build, with an extremely confused Kevin asking why they’d gone from a “goat-catching” company to construction. They decided to build without him, figuring he was good for moving materials and... and that was about it. This was where Jillian was at her happiest, with the hands-on building. She managed to build half of it before it got dark and moved up a few outdoor chairs to watch the stars.

                Gilbert knocked on the metal door that led down into the firehouse, “Mind if I join you?”

                “Go for it. I keep wondering if I could’ve gotten into CERN or NASA, you know, doing the big science. The stuff that you get Nobel Prizes for. I know I made the right choice, but I guess I’ll always wonder.”

                “Who’s to say we won’t?” Gilbert said, flopping into a chair next to her, “We could always blackmail the committees by releasing ghosts into Sweden and Norway.”

                “Erin, no.”

               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, getting back on the happy note. Leave some comments, my pretties.
> 
> Art by the fantastic Rootproxy


	10. The Boy Who Cried Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mild sex scene, emotional abuse, bears

 

 

                It took them an extra two days, but they managed to complete the sun roof. Jillian was sitting inside the little observatory on a rainy morning, wrapped up in a wool blanket with a cup of tea in her hands— appreciating where she’d ended up. She watched the traffic flow this way and that, content with her lazing position on the comfy, disinfected couch ( _“I told you dumpster diving can be fun!” “Gilbert, I thought you said this was from your friend, Sally!” “Well, yeah, she lives next to a dumpster...”_ ).

                The steam of the tea began to fog her glasses, and she took another sip before removing them to wipe the vapor off.

                “You know how in movies, the boy takes off the girl’s glasses and goes, _‘Why are you wearing these? You’re more beautiful without them!_ ’” Gilbert asked from the doorway.

                “Yeah.”

                The physicist sat down in the green wicker chair and rested her cane on the table, “Fuck ‘em.”

                “Thanks. Do you want some tea?”

                Gilbert pretended to consider it, and then moved towards the couch— sitting down next to Jillian and accepting the cup. The engineer watched her take a sip, watched her lips on the rim of the ceramic, and when she returned the cup... Jillian pretended not to notice the utterly desirable lipstick stain on the edge. She offered some of her blanket to Gilbert and relaxed into the warmth of the couch.

                “If you hadn’t have met Abby, would you have pursued the metaphysical?” Jillian asked.

                Gilbert chuckled, “No. She was a beacon in the fog, that’s for sure.”

                “Were you ever... well... never mind.”

                “I was.”

                “Hmm?”

                “I was in love with her, if that’s what you’re asking,” Gilbert smiled. “In college, when I realized I was bi. I think one of life’s sweetest delights is to fall in love with a best friend. Time passed and I let those clouds pass overhead and float away.”

                “You never told her?”

                “Oh, I did. I’m not exactly the subtlest of women, Jilly.”

                Both of them had a laugh at that. The engineer scooted closer to the physicist and took another sip of tea— they stared at the thunder in the distance, though the sun roof showed no signs of water leaking through. Jillian pulled the blanket up to her chin and sighed.

                “So, what did Abby do?”

                “She said, ‘Cool, pass me that wrench’ and we went back to our daily business.”

                Jillian looked at Gilbert’s distant, sad eyes, “She shot you down?”

                “Like a Death Star. Abby isn’t really into relationships, or more-than-platonic intimacy for that matter. I didn’t mind, it gave me closure to date other people. Like I said, those clouds passed overhead and floated away.”

                  Jillian stared at a helicopter flying over the skyline of the city, picking at the strings at the edge of the blanket. She sniffled, fearing that she was coming down with a bit of a cold, and then huddled closer to Gilbert. They spoke naught, but it eventually turned dark. They watched the rain fall onto the glass above them, and it felt as though they were traveling through space at light speed. The engineer was the first to break the silence, still staring up at the rain;

                “I’m gay.”

                Gilbert glanced at her, but Jillian didn’t break her observation of the black, stormy sky above them. The older woman shifted the blanket further up Jillian’s shoulders, and even though the latter couldn’t see it, she could still feel the presence of a smile in the room. It felt as though the storm had left for a few moments, as though the sun were poking through even though it was nighttime. It felt as though they hadn’t survived a near-apocalypse together.

                There was a peaceful moment between the confession and the gears turning in Gilbert’s head. Jillian worried that, after all the proclamations of heterosexuality, the physicist wouldn’t accept her. As though she was The Boy Who Cried Wolf... but The Girl Who Cried Gay. Gilbert’s hand found hers under the blanket, and Jillian glanced down at the light up skyline of New York, studying the various skyscrapers. The cute displays of gratitude had long since disappeared, but it was still a beautiful sight to behold. Eventually, she looked into Gilbert’s wide, caring eyes; the physicist smiled and opened her mouth;

                “Hi, Gay—”

                “Don’t you dare.”

                “I’m Erin.”

                Jillian picked up the pillow she was laying against and smacked Gilbert in the face with it, the both of them laughing harmoniously. Eventually, the physicist threw the pillow across the room where no one could be hit with it. She settled down on the opposite end of the couch and drew her knees towards her core.

                “How long have you known?”

                Jillian bit down on her lip. The honest answer, at least when the feelings had begun to resurface from high school, was Kenneth P. Higgins, when she first met Gilbert— but she didn’t want to open that can of worms just yet. So instead, she spoke a semi-truth;

                “Well... she may be annoying, but the Mayor’s Assistant was awfully pretty for me to think I was straight. I... well... I went home that night and did some research.”

                Sure, she had a small attraction to snake-lady, but it only went so far. She worried for a moment, as Gilbert analyzed the confession. Jillian could see something in Gilbert’s eyes, as though the latter could tell that she was lying, and then the glint went away. The physicist laughed.

                “Yeah, she’s something. If she hadn’t seen my snake, I would’ve tried to get her number. Actually, I’ll let you in on a secret— I’ve seen her at Seth’s.”

                “What’s Seth’s?”

                Gilbert chuckled, “It’s a medium sized LGBT bar down on Madison Avenue. I’ll take you there, if you want. Introduce you to all the girls.”

                “You just want to get me drunk.”

                “No, I want to get you drunk _in front of a lot of people_ — there’s a difference.”

 

.               .               .

 

                _“You’ve been teasing me all day, you know that?” a husky voice whispered in her ear._

_She shivered— as though there was a ghost in the room. For all she knew, there could be. She didn’t want to think about that, though, instead moving a hand to draw lazy circles in her lover’s back. Teeth nipped at her earlobe, and Jillian twitched in anticipation._

_“I’m... I have no regrets.”_

_Her lover bit down at her throat, causing her to cry out, “You know how hot it is when you bust ghosts? I had to go an finish myself in the bathroom after today’s bust. While you were in the lab, playing with tools... I had only my fingers and the shower.”_

_“Why didn’t you come and get me?” Jillian laughed, her nails gripping into the other woman’s back. “What I do isn’t that important.”_

_“It isn’t,” her lover agreed._

_“It... it isn’t?”_

_“No.”_

_“Oh,” Jillian said in disappointment. She wanted nothing but to please this woman, the only person who wanted her this way._

_“If it weren’t for the stupid report we put up on our website, you would still be kissing ass at Columbia. And we would have built our machines on our own, you know that?” her lover giggled, lowering her mouth down to Jillian’s nipples._

_The sensation of teeth grew harder and harder until it was painful. Jillian still kept her eyes open, the disappointment in herself growing as her lover switched between kissing and biting her chest. She felt hips grinding against her own and gasped a little. After all these months, she finally had this woman in bed with her— she wasn’t going to ruin this chance, but her mouth kept speaking without her brain’s permission;_

_“You... you could have done all this without me?”_

_“That’s right. We kept you around because we thought you were pretty.”_

_“Oh.”_

_“You know, you don’t even have to be here anymore. Abby, Patty, and I would be better off without you.”_

_“Better... off... without me?”_

_Her lover quickly raised her head to kiss Jillian on the lips, slower at first, and then very roughly all of a sudden. Their kiss grew in passion for a good minute before her lover moved her mouth further down Jillian’s body. The sensation was overwhelming, goosebumps rising all over the engineer’s skin. Her legs trembled a little in anticipation and bucked a little at the cold hands on either side of her core._

_“You always get in the way, you know that? And you can’t even handle a good joke— like when I told your mentor that we were dating. You just ran off like a dog with its tail between its legs. Grow up and get a backbone.”_

_Jillian’s hands threaded through brown hair and she let out a moan at the first touch where hands had never gone before. A warm tongue licked her clit, and she let out a howl— pressing her lover’s head further towards her nether regions. Slender, but cold fingers wrapped around the outside of her thighs and gripped tightly, leaving behind red marks as her lover continued playing with her clit with her tongue._

_“Oh fuck!”_

_She felt two fingers enter her and her hips bucked, her thighs turning into putty. The fingers were still cold, and though it felt slightly off, the sensation was overwhelming. Jillian stared up at the ceiling of the physicist’s bedroom and somehow managed to see stars. Her lover kept pumping her hand in and out until Jillian could hardly form thoughts, her breath shortening and her hands gripping tighter into her lover’s hair._

_“It’s a shame you’re such a coward. If you were just a little braver, then you could have saved Austin. You're the reason he's dead, you know.”_

_Jillian propped up on her elbows and frowned, “How the fuck do you know about him!?”_

_Her lover was not the same person who’d been kissing her before, now changing through the faces of every person who had ever put her down or told her she wasn’t enough. Jillian managed to kick the face, which was now Dr. Filmore, and scrambled out of the bed. She closed her eyes as hard as she could and let everything go back._

                She woke up with a start, all alone in the sun room with the blanket still covering her. Gilbert had long left to go to bed, and had left a plate of dinner covered with a lid for her. A note read:

                _I made you a fantastic dinner of Pelican feet and Koala tongues. At least, that’s what my mother used to call it to get me to try it. But if you ever wanted to try those things for real, I know a guy._

_– G._

                Jillian pushed the plate to the side and put her head in her hands, trying not to cry and failing miserably. Did... did she really think that about herself, that she wasn’t a valuable asset to the team? Worse still, did Gilbert think those things about her? Would she ever say those things? Jillian tried wiping a few tears away, but more came.

                “It was just a dream,” she whispered to herself.

                She couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night in that room, too scared that what the woman in that dream had said was the truth. Eventually, she made her way to the lab and worked until she fell asleep there. When she woke in the morning, there was a different blanket around her shoulders, and a pillow under her cheek. A cup of hot tea awaited her— a sticky note with a smiley face on it stuck to the side.

 

.               .               .

 

                “For the seventh time,” Abby sighed, glancing down at the tear in her jumpsuit. “We are not naming him Winnie the Boo!”

                “But he’s a ghost bear!” Gilbert said excitedly. “It’s bear-anormal activity!”

                Jillian picked up the XL trap and carried it towards the hearse, smiling at the amount of bickering Abby and Gilbert were doing. Patty was near the entrance of the museum, discussing payment with the curator. She would have to do some more research into possession, because apparently even animal ghosts were smart enough to possess inanimate objects. The taxidermy bills were going to be a nightmare for the museum. She did another run-through of the equipment, making a mental list of what she needed to fix up, and then closed the back of the Ecto-2. Jillian had the horrid luck of discovering that animal ghosts were capable of projectile vomiting ectoplasm as well, like specter babies.

                God, that would be creepy— a ghost baby.

                “Looks like our work here is done,” Gilbert laughed, sliding through the window and into the front seat without even opening the door.

                “Hey! Don’t you do that unless you want your ass kicked by my uncle!” Patty called from the museum stairs.               

                “You guys don’t know how to have fun. Warping to light speed in three, two, one—”

                “Gilbert, you don’t even have the keys,” Jillian pointed out. “You’re not going to get very far.”

                “Not with that attitude.”

                Patty opened the shotgun door and sat down, passing Gilbert the keys, “Are we all here? Good, let’s go home. Mama needs a couple of shots.”

                They got to the firehouse, and Gilbert picked up Winnie the Boo with a wild grin, “I can’t wait to study this specimen. Ooh! What if we made a saddle that allowed us to ride it! I could take a photo of me with my shirt off on top of a ghost bear, with the two of us leaping over a canyon, and destroy gender roles once and for all!”

                “Keep your tits covered and keep that bear in its containment unit,” Abby warned.

                Jillian took the trap from Gilbert, ignoring the pout the older woman was giving her, “How about some detailed drawings of bear-anormal activity? I promise I’ll stick them on the fridge.”

                “I suppose that’s more reasonable, isn’t it? Nothing historic ever came out of people who were being reasonable, you know.”

                “I know,” Jillian nodded, grinning and following Gilbert to the lab.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave comments! Tell me what you think of my horrid writing!
> 
> Edit: I found the mistake, for some reason I wrote "he's the reason you're dead" instead of the other way around XD


	11. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

 

 

                Jillian was a true introvert, leaning up against the wall and cautiously sipping away at a cocktail. She watched Gilbert dance around with two gay men, laughing and telling them all her favorite jokes. By the sound of it, she knew everyone here— which intimidated Jillian a little. It wasn’t as though she was planning on flirting tonight, but what if one of Gilbert’s exes hit on her, or someone bought a drink who turned out to be the physicist’s worst nightmare? She decided to stay near the stage, where a pair of butch girls were playing some sort of alternative or indie jam. 

                A girl with bright blue hair, shaved on one side, slid up to her and crossed her arms with a smile, “Relax, no one here is out to get you!”

                Jillian glanced down at her drink, which was the same color as the girl’s hair. The alcohol was beginning to make her feel a little brave, but not enough. She took a sip and shrugged, mumbling sheepishly, “It’s my first time here."

                “Really? You look like the kind of person who comes here all the time.”

                “No,” the engineer said, shaking her head, “That’d be my friend over there.”

                Blue turned to look at the dance floor, where Jillian was pointing. Her eyes widened in recognition, “Oh, you’re Gilbert’s girl!”

                “What? Oh, no, we aren’t dating.”

                “Could’ve fooled me, she talks about you all the time. Says you’re in the Ghostbusters as well. Must be pretty dangerous.”

                Jillian straightened up a little and tugged on her collar, “Very dangerous, yeah. I got thrown out of a window yesterday, had to get a few stitches.”

                She neglected to mention that the window in question was on the first floor of a house, and the stitches were to repair her pants. Blue-haired-girl laughed and squeezed Jillian’s bicep playfully, her hips swaying to the beat of the live music.

                “I never believed the Mayor when he said that it was terrorists poisoning our water supply. I had a ghost knock over my dinner before riffling through my closet. He stole one of my leather jackets, you know.”

                “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”       

                “Don’t be, I got it from my sister, and it was a horrid orange color.”

                Jillian smiled, “Well if you ever need a busting, give us a call.”

                “Usually girls take me out to dinner before they try and bust me.”

                “Oh! No, I meant—”

                Blue squeezed her arm again, “Relax, I was kidding.”

                Jillian took another sip of her cocktail and glanced across the dance floor at Gilbert, who gave her a thumbs’ up. It may have been a trick of the light, but there was a hint of disappointment on her friend’s face; an expression that she really didn’t like seeing. But then the physicist turned and went back to dancing with Bialystok and Bloom. For some reason, she felt compelled to... to remain loyal to Gilbert? That didn’t even make any sense, but before Jillian knew it, she was fidgeting and trying to make an excuse to leave.

                “I... um... I should...”

                Blue tucked a strand of blond hair behind Jillian’s ear and moved very closely to her face. A warm pair of lips kissed her cheek and she could feel her heart speed up.

                “You just come back here and let me know if _you_ need a bust, sweetheart. I’m here pretty often.”            

                Jillian excused herself, partially feeling a little regretful for having shot down such an attractive person, but another part of her just really wanted to spend time with Gilbert. She set her glass down on the bar and ordered another cocktail, waving for Gilbert to come and join her.

                “Hey!” the physicist said, a little out of breath, “What happened with you and Mellissa?”

                “That was her name? I thought it was going to be something more punk, like Evelyn or Chloe. She was pretty nice, but I don’t really think my first gay experiences should be with a total stranger I met at a bar.”

                “You’re an adult,” Gilbert shrugged, taking a sip of Jillian’s cocktail, “That means you have to do adult things now like mowing the lawn and lying about Santa. And going to bars where strangers hit on you.”

                “Well... I guess if I ever were to get into this kind of thing, it’d be when I was taking my girlfriend here,” Jillian smiled nervously. And then she added with a stammer, “If I ever g-get a girlfriend. I’ll probably b-be single for the rest of my life. What with the crazy ghost hunting, and all.”

                Gilbert stared at the dance floor, and then held out her hand. Jillian tried to protest, but a warm, firm grip wrapped around her wrist and pulled her along until they were smack in the middle of the crowd. The next band was nineties themed, making Gilbert ecstatic. A cover of some Ace of Base song came on and the physicist began twirling around— even with her cane at her side. Jillian’s smile grew as wide as a continent and she let out a shaky breath, determined to have a good time with her best friend.

                “God that was the hardest,” Gilbert said, as the music slowed to a softer song.

                “What do you mean?”

                “The nineties... people like us were dying left and right. I was nineteen in ’93, and I remember some of the college staff having to empty the dorm of a kid we’d known. We never knew he was sick with AIDS because he was good at hiding— baggy sweaters and night classes, apparently he’d had it for about two years but couldn’t afford the medical treatments. The college offered to return his stuff to his parents, but they refused. So, they let the rest of the student body pick through clothes and valuables like vultures.”

                Jillian had never once considered that Gilbert had been around during that time and still identifying as bisexual. Essentially identifying as a death sentence during that time period. She threw her arms around the older woman and drew her into a tight hug.

                “I’m sorry.”

                She could hear Gilbert smile, “It’s alright. It just means we live for them. We’re proud of who we are for them. It’s all well and dandy if you want to stay in the closet, but when you come out, we’re going to help you fight for the sake of the people no one fought for.”

                Jillian buried her face into her best friend’s hoodie and let out a shaky sigh, “I don’t know if I’m ready yet.”

                “That’s okay. Now let’s dance— we’re disrespecting the memories and legacy of N-SYNC by standing around like this.”

                “They’re still alive.”

                Gilbert shook her head, “When they broke up, they were dead to me.”

 

.               .               .

 

                “Finding everything you’re looking for?” the old woman at the desk asked.

                Jillian nodded, “Yes, just browsing for now.”

                “Well, you let me know if you need any help.”

                Gilbert gently brushed past her towards the clearance section, “Oh... look at all this treasure! I could make a years’ worth of painting outfits out of all this stuff. Look at this leather jacket!”

                “It’s very you,” Jillian agreed with a smile.

                “Come on, let’s see what’s over in accessories, sometimes you find real treasures.”

                A hand slipped in her own and her heart skipped like a stone over a calm lake. She let herself be led towards a wall of various hair clips, earrings, bracelets, hats, and glasses. Jillian merely leaned against a rack of skiing jackets while Gilbert tried on as many different things as she could, all at once. She ended up looking like a character out of Rocky Horror, causing Jillian to laugh.

                “Come on, you gotta try something, that’s the rule!”

                “What rule?”

                “The thrift shop rule! Macklemore died so that you could have the rights to act as silly as you want in places like this.”

                Jillian raised an eyebrow, “I’m pretty sure he’s still al—”

                Gilbert walked right up to her with a pair of glasses and smacked them on her face. Jillian had to close her eyes while the older woman adjusted them to sit just right on her nose. When she opened her eyes, the world around her was yellow— like she was looking at everything through a glass of lemonade. Gilbert moved her so she could get a look of herself in the mirror.

                “What do you think?”

                Jillian... really liked how they made her look; like a mad scientist who lived alone in a castle. The sides were of a shiny metal, perfectly protecting the space around her eyes. The lenses made her look a little like a bug, but she began to realize that she didn’t really care how big her eyes looked. These glasses were... silly. Absolutely childish and full of imagination.

                “Wow... I really love them, Erin. They make me look like Maz from the new Star Wars. I kind of want to keep them— I mean, do you think they look good on me? They... they feel so spunky! I’ve never felt so spunky before! Do people still say that word?”

                Gilbert was silent, and Jillian began to notice a new expression on the physicist’s face; one she’d never seen before. She felt hands take either side of her face and draw her closer.

                “Oh...,” Gilbert whispered softly, with the happiest eyes Jillian had ever seen. “There she is.”

                “Who?”

                “That girl you’ve been looking for. I think I might have found her, just starting to come out of her shell and not give a care about what the rest of the world thinks. I think you’re starting to find her, too, aren’t you?”

                Jillian hadn’t even realized that her hands were resting on Erin’s hips, pulling the physicist closer and closer. She glanced down through the yellow-tinted glasses at Erin’s lips, and for the first time in... forever... she found herself wanting to kiss someone so badly that it hurt. Both women were slowly inching closer and closer to each other, and Jillian closed her eyes and tilted her head ever so slightly to the left. She could feel Erin’s hitched breath on her own lips... could almost feel Erin’s lips graze her own...

                “I don’t care if you saved New York City, if you’re going to do that, take it outside!” the old woman at the front desk shouted.

                Both of them sprang apart like elastic toys. The glasses slipped off Jillian’s nose, but she managed to catch them before they fell to the floor. Erin’s face was so pink that Anish Kapoor wouldn’t be allowed to buy it. Jillian could feel her own face burning in embarrassment, and grabbed her best friend by the wrist to pay for the glasses.

                Outside, the snowfall was growing, and they decided to stop in a nearby coffee shop before heading home. Jillian paid for both of their drinks, and while they were waiting, Erin wrapped a hand around her waist— pulling the two women close. Jillian rested her cheek on Erin’s shoulders, only to feel her hair get a kiss seconds later. Coffee in hand, they walked back towards the firehouse— their boots eventually becoming waterlogged from not being snow-proof. They unanimously (and silently) decided to strip down to underwear and put on pajamas before heading up to the sun roof.

                “You know, I kinda want to see if we can bring back the mammoths before the DNA boys can,” Erin pondered, glancing at the snow flurry building up over the New York skyline, “It would be a admirable tusk, don’t you think.”

                Jillian sighed at her best friend’s pun, and then set both cups of coffee down on the little table, “Listen, no offense, but I’m not interested in discussion, no matter how adorable mastodons are in your opinion.”

                Erin’s face broke into a smile, and she had all of a second to try and ask what it was that they were going to do instead before Jillian kissed her with a passionate determination. The feeling of Erin’s lips was enough to make Jillian weak in the knees, and she wasn’t even the one who needed a cane. She cupped Erin’s face and pushed her body up against the physicist’s for warmth. Strong arms wrapped around her, making her feel more grounded than she’d felt in almost twenty years. She was kissing Erin Gilbert, and it was probably the best investment Jillian had ever made. After all, they say that you should put your money where your mouth is.       

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are so awesome! Keep on rocking in the queer world! Leave me some comments, my pretties! 
> 
> Art by rootproxy, that adorable little devil


	12. Snakebites and Seasoning

 

 

                Dating Erin Gilbert was... easy. In fact, it was the simplest thing that Dr. Jillian Holtzmann had ever done in her entire life— and a small part of her felt suspicious of that. Another part of her, a bit of Erin’s personality that’d rubbed off on her, told her to fucking chill and have a good time.

                So, she did.

                Her favorite thing to do with Erin was bike around the city, whether it was raining or sunny outside, one could count on spotting the two of them speeding down the road to the nearest bakery to enjoy brunch together. They would wait in line, occasionally stealing kisses, enjoy a lunch, and then head back out on the road. Having spent most of her time in Columbia just sitting around waiting for the next lecture... Jillian was actually beginning to learn the city inside and out. There was another perk to biking; having an excuse to check out her girlfriend’s muscular, toned body as they pedaled to and from the firehouse. It even got her so distracted that at one point she crashed into a fire hydrant. After that, Gilbert insisted that she stay in front and keep her yellow glasses off while they rode bikes. God, she loved those yellow glasses. The more she wore them, the better she felt— as though being silly was the ultimate key to achieving happiness (she wouldn’t doubt it; just take one look at Erin Gilbert for proof).

                Abby and Patty didn’t know yet about the two of them being involved, though Jillian had yet to ask if Gilbert wanted to be her girlfriend. Needless to say, there was a noticed change in the atmosphere that the others approved of; the team was so tight-knit that busts took an hour max these days. Kevin was so overwhelmed with calls, praised was the efficiency of the team, that he began to take random hours of the day off, insisting that he get paid maternity leave on his breaks for some reason ( _“Kevin, that’s not how that works” “Gilbert said that you guys are basically my moms, so if I leave you, it’s maternity leave”_ ).

                Then, there was the actual intimacy. Jillian felt like she’d been starved for this; as though she’d been waiting years for Erin Gilbert. She’s be working in the lab, then feel arms slip around her waist and kisses press to her neck— and all productivity would evaporate from here.

                “I have to finish fixing Abby’s pack,” Jillian said, leaning into Gilbert’s body.

                Several kisses to the spot just under her ear, and a soft whisper of, “It can wait.”

                Erin dragged her towards the couch in the lab and pushed her down playfully. She then straddled Jillian’s lap and pulled her close to kiss her properly. The engineer let out a moan, melting into Erin’s mouth and basking in the contact. One hand settled on Erin’s thigh and the other wrapped around the older woman’s back to ground herself— her fingers digging into Erin so that she could keep a grip on reality because... damn, she might as well be flying through the clouds. Absolute euphoria, just from another woman’s kisses. She traced Gilbert’s spine playfully as the physicist explored Jillian’s mouth using her tongue. It caused Jillian to squirm her hips in excitement, and she felt slender, warm fingers thread through her hair.

                “God, you’re so... satisfying,” Erin whispered with a smile, attacking Jillian’s neck.

                Teeth nipping at the muscle in her throat caused her breathing to quicken, a whimper escaping from her lips as she dug her fingers into Gilbert’s legs.

                “Where do you want your package, Dr. Holtzmann?” Kevin asked from the doorway.

                Jillian’s eyes flew open and she let out an ugly noise at having been discovered by their secretary. But Kevin didn’t even look fazed, hiding behind a big box of parts that she’d ordered last week. She squeaked for him to set it down by her workbench while Gilbert continued biting at her neck, not caring in the slightest about Kevin’s prescence.

                “There you go. Oh, and boss?”

                “Y-Yes, Kev?” Jillian asked, as Erin pulled on her hair.

                “If she’s trying to suck the venom out of a snakebite you’ve got, don’t let her do that. It really doesn’t help. Just get yourself to a hospital,” Kevin smiled, heading down the stairs. “Trust me, I’m Australian. We know these things.”

                “Th-thanks Kevin! That’ll be all for now!”

               

.               .               .

               

                Far past her usual bedtime, Jillian leaned back in her office chair and popped open her laptop. The screen light up, far too bright for her poor adult eyes, and she squinted as she began to type. Jennifer Lynch demanded reports every two weeks on the progress the Ghostbusters were making in securing the city from any further attacks.

                Eventually, her brain became friend from four pages of explaining in toddler terms what she was doing in her lab. She closed Microsoft Word and let out a sigh, opening up the news on her browser.

                And then it hit her— what she’d been trying to look for in the library a few months ago. She’d wanted to look up Gilbert’s car crash. Superstitious, she glanced up and listened for any movement in the residential floor above her. The last thing Jillian wanted to do was betray Gilbert’s privacy, but at the same time, perhaps the more she knew the more helpful she could be if the physicist had a medical emergency.

                She remembered the accident had happened about one month before Jillian met Erin and Abby... but where had it been again? She took a sip of her coffee and tried to think about it, finally snapping her fingers and typing;

                Ditmas Park + July 2016 + T-bone car accident.

                A few results came up, but none of them made any sense. There were a few rear ends, some issues with people trying to parallel park, and one occasion where a drunk moped crashed into a tree... but other than that there hadn’t been anything major— which surely would have been reported by the news if someone had crashed so intensely in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone.

                She searched for June and August as well, in case Erin’s timeframe hadn’t given enough clarity. But there were still no major accidents in Ditmas Park that matched the description Erin had given.

                Jillian shut her laptop and tried to piece the clues together, and something snapped— Erin’s injury was on her right leg. If she was driving, wouldn’t her left leg be the one that was injured, because it was closer to a point of impact? Surely if the right side of a car was hit, the crumple zone would absorb more shock and damage to the right side of Erin’s body would be minimal? At least, assuming that Erin would wear a seatbelt— and while the physicist was goofy, she had possessed common sense.

                Then there was the mental concept to ponder— Erin had said that the crash gave her nightmares, but if she was suffering PTSD, why would she be so eager to drive the Ecto-2 before and after busts? Jillian wasn’t a physiatrist, but she had a basic understanding of triggers and trauma; Erin couldn’t be more excited about driving around in their amazing rig, despite the “nightmares”.

                Was she lying about her injury? Jillian didn’t want to believe it, especially since Abby had confirmed the crash, but what if there was something more to this?

                She shook her head, “It’s not my place to snoop. I should just go to bed and let her tell me what’s wrong when she’s ready.”

 

.               .               .

 

                Now this was the true definition of jumpiness. Jillian was wearing a pea coat and had her hair tucked under a beanie as she stood in line for a table, her freezing fingers tensely twirling a strand that’d fallen out of her braid. Erin was late, but Jillian didn’t really mind as it would be half an hour before they could even get a table at this fancy-schmancy bistro. She shivered and tucked her face into a scarf around her neck, waiting for the sweet release of death.

                “Sorry I’m late, Mrs. Nesbitt was having an existential crisis and I had to walk him through his life choices. I hope you aren’t mad at me,” Gilbert said, her Bambi eyes at work.

                Jillian let out a sigh and a laugh at the same time, “No worries.”

                Erin leaned up against her with a smile, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. They huddled together and waited for the line to clear up, eventually getting into the cramped, but warm bistro. Both of them instantly ordered hot soup, taking their coats off and allowing the warmth of the restaurant to engulf them.

                But they noticed something was off when their soup arrived cold. The waiter took it back with a grunt for an apology, and the two women patiently waited for their meal. It never came. They sat there for fifteen minutes, talking and shivering, until both of them had had enough pretending that this wasn’t incredibly horrible service.

                “I’m starting to think that Benny might be more reliable for soup purchases in the future,” Erin sighed folding her arms across her chest.

                “I don’t understand, there are couples in here who came ten minutes after us and they already have all their food.”

                “This restaurant might not take too kindly to two women on a date in their fine establishment.”

                “But... let me get the waiter,” Jillian grumbled, getting out of her seat.

                She found him lazing around in the back and laughing with his buddies, demanding that they hadn’t been served properly. The man stiffened and eyed Jillian with a narrowed stare.

                “We’re not interested in serving... your type.”

                “Excuse me?”

                Another waiter made a shooing gesture, “Go on, let a more respectable customer have your seat. Our business doesn’t condone homosexuality.”

                “First off,” Erin said, sliding up next to Jillian, “Bisexuality. Second off, you must be dirt poor with practices like that in New York.”

                Jillian was overwhelmed all of a sudden, worried that they might hurt her, or worse Erin. People were staring at them... and this was all so new to her that she couldn’t help the tears welling up and causing her vision to go fuzzy. Erin grabbed the engineer’s hand and they weaved through the tables. Out of the corner of her eye, Jillian thought she saw movement. Sure enough, as soon as they’d been kicked out for being queer— a bunch of people began to follow, scolding the waiters as they left;

                “Those are the Ghostbusters! They saved New York a few months ago, you ungrateful pigs!”

                “Yeah, never dining here anymore!”

                “It’s twenty-fucking-sixteen, dude. Get a life!”

                Erin laughed and laughed as the waiters tried following them out of the restaurant, apologizing and offering a free meal. They declined by holding up a lewd gesture and walking down the street. The line formed at the bistro dissipated somewhat, making Jillian feel as though it was worth it— even if she was outed by two waiters half her age. She stayed close to Gilbert on the walk home and waited for her to say something... anything... hoping that the date hadn’t been ruined for the older woman.

                “That was so brave of you back there. You know what this makes me really want to do?” Gilbert leaned towards her and whispered in a husky, incredibly sexy voice, “Let’s order pizza, babe.”

               

.               .               .

 

                Abby moved the rook forwards, absolutely sure that it was a perfect strategy. Jillian easily destroyed the piece with her knight. She leaned back in her seat.

                “Hypothetically, if someone you knew were to come out, what would you do?”

                “I’d tell you to get over yourself and stop taking out all my good pieces. We hunt ghosts for a living, you think I care that you’re gay?”

                Jillian smiled, and then leaned forwards, “Alright then, let me ask you this. Hypothetically, if I wanted to ask out someone I’ve been... occasionally making out with in the lab upstairs, how should I go about that?”

                Abby captured the engineer’s bishop, “Hypothetically, you would want to keep it low key. I mean, I know Gilbert isn’t the subtlest rock in the avalanche, but she does appreciate humility as much as anyone.”

                “So, no stripers?”

                “I’m sure you could pay Kevin to dance around without his shirt off for her, but it would ruin the sense of monogamy. Keep it private, and do it somewhere special for you two.”

                “I don’t know how to cook.”

                “And?” Abby asked, raising an eyebrow.

                “And we were thrown out of a restaurant yesterday, a fancy one. I want to make her something nice to compensate for that.”

                Someone came up and kissed her on the cheek, “Well, I’m always a slut for Italian food if you think you’ve got what it takes.”

                Jillian jumped a little, “H-How much of that did you hear?”

                “Not enough, but I love gossip. So, what have I done this time?” Erin inquired. “You found out about the sex tapes, didn’t you? I knew Kenneth P. Higgins would come up with blackmail to get me to come back eventually.”

                Abby threw a few chess pieces at Gilbert and laughed, “Shoo! We’re having a moment!”

                Erin trounced up the stairs with a chameleon tucked in her hoodie pocket and a snake wrapped around her arm, laughing like a maniac. Jillian felt something warm and fuzzy inside and ignored the retching noises that Abby was making. She really... really enjoyed Erin Gilbert, to say the least.

                “I suppose dating your co-worker can be beneficial, but only if you promise me you’ll keep your head in the game during busts. I had enough trouble trying to keep Erin away from Kevin when he first joined— before she found out about his IQ. I don’t need the two of you playing seven-minutes-in-heaven in the closet while Patty and I play thirty-minutes-of-whoop-ass with the ghosts.”

                “No such promises. Check mate.”

               

.               .               .

 

                She carefully pulled the tray out of the oven and let the bread cool, inhaling the wonderful aroma of garlic. The pasta was almost done, about to be topped with vodka sauce and parmesan cheese— Patty loudly reminding her in the background to add seasonings (Jillian wasn’t sure what spices went in which dishes so with a her fingers crossed, she added a little bit of everything). The engineer sliced the bread and wrapped it in a clean napkin, setting it into a basket and checking her timers. Music could be heard from upstairs, and more importantly everyone in the firehouse could hear Gilbert singing along to it as she painted. Though Jillian had mentioned that she wanted dinner to be a little formal, she still felt amusement at the notion of Erin showing up to the meal in paint splattered overalls— perhaps with a dozen pencils sticking out of various pockets.

                She served the gnocchi onto two plates, covered the pasta with the sauce and cheese, and carefully arranged the tray so that everything could balance out. Jillian nearly ran up the stairs in excitement to the sun roof; where a bottle of wine and two glasses were waiting.

                “Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend!” Gilbert called as she passed.

                Abby was, of course, never to be trusted with any trivial secrets ever again. Jillian would be consulting Patty in the future.

                “Stop it! I haven’t asked you yet! It has to be just right!”

                Jillian set the tray down on the little table and used her lighter to ignite two candles— though there were no other lights on the roof, it actually worked to make the room look... beautiful. She put the lighter in her back pocket, not likely to use it again (she’d given up smoking just after they’d formed the Ghostbusters, though thankfully she hadn’t enjoyed it enough to become addicted in the first place).

                “Am I allowed to come up yet?” Gilbert asked, a hand covering her eyes.

                “Sure.”

                “The food smells so Italian, I bet it’s on a first name basis with the Borgias,” Erin teased, sitting down on the couch and tugging Jillian down with her. “Don’t stress it, Jilly.”

                To make the younger woman calm down, Erin gave her a long kiss before uncorking the wine and pouring them both a glass. Overall, the meal was fantastic— and Jillian felt like she was going through an epiphany at how amazing the seasoning was (Dr. Gorin was one of those people who insisted that butter and salt counted, unfortunately). Afterwards they cuddled together on the couch and Jillian rested her weary head on Erin’s shoulder— wishing the moment could be eternal.

                “Will you be my girlfriend?”

                Erin pretended to ponder the question for a few seconds, taking a sip and smiling into her glass. It was the first time Jillian had ever seen her so shy, “Of course. You elate me, Jillian.”

                They kissed, wine glasses in hand and hearts full of a warm energy (which, if we’re being honest, was probably the alcohol, but Jillian wanted to have some sense of poetry). She cupped Erin’s cheek and pressed a kiss to her nose, the both of them laughing a little at having found each other. The night was euphoric, and Jillian had a feeling that it wasn’t over, especially when Erin kissed her again. This time was more passionate, Jillian could feel a smile against her mouth, and the next thing she heard made her feel partially giddy and partially nervous;

                “I want you.”

                Jillian’s head drew back a little, “What do you... mean?”

                “If you’re ready, I’ve wanted you since the day I saw you,” Erin whispered, kissing her again. “I can’t stop imagining you in bed, and if you’ll have me I’ll show you what it means to truly be with a woman.”

                They left the dishes in the sun room, and Erin pulled Jilly towards her bedroom with a bright smile, only stopping once to push her against the wall and kiss her with as much passion as she could muster.

                The evening awaited them, in all its glory.  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happens next will shock you.
> 
> Leave comments! I'm not going to update tomorrow, but I'll be back on Wednesday!
> 
> Edit: I wrote the snakebite joke completely forgetting that Erin owns a snake, even if it isn't poisonous. Kevin's actually very thoughtful, isn't he?


	13. Nothing to Prove With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! Chapter is NSFW!!!

 

 

                Jillian kept her lips on Erin’s neck as the latter attempted to quietly the door, fiddling with the brass knob once, twice, and then finally making the reckless decision to kick it shut. It caused a loud _SNAP!_ that certainly woke the others, if not warning them to leave for the night. The engineer kept strong, but trembling arms wrapped around Gilbert as she bit down on what skin she could uncover from the physicist’s hoodie. She could feel a pulse push against her teeth and smiled, biting down and tasting warmth. The scent of mint filled her nose and she pushed further into Gilbert— desperate to have all of her at once.

                She felt a tugging sensation and felt her hair loosen from its usual braid until it cascaded down her shoulders, giving Gilbert something to grip on. In turn she pulled Erin’s headband off, letting ghost white hair tickle her nose.

                The younger woman could hear a sharp whine from above her head as she bit down, soothing the bite with kisses and her tongue before attacking the other side of Gilbert’s neck. She chose to leave a mark, sucking until she knew a bruise would form. The delectable, instant result was the whimpering escaping from her girlfriend, fingers pulling on her hair just enough to attract her attention.

                They met in a kiss so pressured that Jillian was almost certain her lips would lose feeling for the next few days. Gilbert decided to have tit for tat, scratching the back of Jillian’s head and neck mid kiss; causing her to practically melt into the embrace.

                “Hah, I never should have told you about that desire of mine,” Jillian moaned into Gilbert’s lips.

                Erin pressed a kiss to the spot just beneath her chin, “Relax. Let me take care of this. Let me take care of you, my darling.”

                Kisses dotting her throat for all of a few moments before her neck was peppered with bites, right down the trachea. It caused her to let out a groan, and with Erin’s teeth against her throat, the noise only amplified the sensation. Gilbert kept at her neck while gently pushing her backwards. At first, Jillian wasn’t sure where they were going until Erin roughly pinned her against the wall.

                She felt her hands pinned somewhere above her head, as though Jillian were prisoner— though she couldn’t imagine a scenario where she wouldn’t want this from Gilbert, and she couldn’t imagine a Gilbert who would force her unwillingly to commit such desires as these. Yet the hands pinned above her head made her feel dominated, if only a little. There would be time for that in the future— and the mere thought of a romantic future with Erin Gilbert, as the woman in question attacked her throat in passion, made Jillian a little excited and a little dizzy.

                “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

                “Yes, Erin, just take me already!” she whined.

                Another harsh kiss to her mouth and Gilbert began removing her flannel button by painstaking button— and judging the expertise with which she did so, Jillian realized just how skilled Erin was at removing another woman’s clothing (not that she was jealous, mind). Erin pulled the flannel down Jillian’s shoulders with speed, but gentleness. Passion, but thought. Fervor, but admiration. The engineer wrapped her arms around Gilbert’s neck and pulled the other woman close as she felt her bra come undone.

                “Do you want me to... it’s alright if you want me to skip that part of your body—”

                A little out of breath, Dr. Holtzmann kissed Erin’s earlobe and murmured, “Oh, God, please touch me there.”

                When hands that were not her own touched her chest for the first time in her life, Jillian let out a small gasp, her eyes pointing at a wall decoration across the room but her mind many leagues elsewhere. How had she abstained from this?

                Erin very, very carefully started with one finger, gently tracing the areola of Jillian’s right nipple. She felt all the ridges and bumps be softly caressed and wanted to beg for more, but something told her that Gilbert rewarded patience. Sure enough, the older woman gently massaged her nipple with her thumb, and the other hand skimmed up Jillian’s side with the touch of a ghost— although in their profession they knew that comparison to be wholly inaccurate. Nevertheless, the sides of her stomach twitched as Gilbert’s warm fingers traced the faint muscles there.

                “You’re doing so well. It’s okay to opt out if you need to.”

                “How could I? What person walks away from an oasis in the middle of a desert?” Jillian laughed, throwing her head back against the wall.

                And then she let out a groan, curling her toes where she stood when Gilbert cupped both of her breasts and gently massaged them. Not even her own wandering hands on lonely nights could make equivalent to the bliss she felt right now. As though an aching pain was drawing out of her skin with every squeeze of the other woman’s palms.

                Jillian was beginning to forget her name, and she hadn’t even taken her pants off yet. She decided to do something about that.

                Her eyes flew open and she pressed a quick kiss to Erin’s mouth, a little reminiscing of their first kiss in the lab above the Chinese Restaurant. This time, the motives were quite different and far more reciprocated. Jillian nearly let out a growl as she pulled Erin’s crimson University of Michigan hoodie over her head and...

                “You’re not wearing a shirt, nor a bra?”

                “It’s called beginner’s luck,” Gilbert smiled, kissing Jillian again, then flushing their bodies together in a hug. “Well, for you at least.”

                Erin walked her towards the bed and pushed Jillian down, straddling the engineer’s hips and moving her mouth down to Jillian’s chest. Fingers and hands were one thing, but when Jillian felt teeth lightly close around a pink nub and tug, she squirmed and let out a groan. Her left nipple was taken into Erin’s mouth, being teased around by a euphoric tongue before the physicist sucked down hard on it. The groan that followed was much more audible, and if Jillian listened closely she would have heard doors cacophonously slam downstairs and the unmistakable noise of the Ecto-2 sirens growing fainter by the second.

                But her senses were shot at the moment. Utterly annihilated by Erin Gilbert’s talents.

                Jillian was reduced to whimpers as she clawed pretty pink lines down Erin’s back with her nails, unable to do much else but let her body be explored by the expert. She felt a nose slowly trace down the middle of her stomach and nudge her belly.

                This... this was it.

                “Wait! Wait!” she begged.

                Erin stopped almost immediately, rushing up to Jillian and letting her face be cradled by the engineer’s hands, “What is it? Are we going too fast?”

                “No... I... I just want to make sure you know something; I don’t want you to think that I’m experimenting. I don’t want you to feel like I’m using you.”

                “Is that your concern, Jillian? You’re a scientist; experiments and failures are a natural necessity in our field! I could never judge you for needing clarity to feel valid about your sexuality— even and especially if you’ve thought about men in the past. The whole shamming of ‘experimenting’ is just a way for privileged gays and lesbians to put down the kids who weren’t sure of themselves from day one. _And_ the bi and pan people, Jilly. It’s okay if you’ve liked a guy before— I understand the attraction to them, I really do,” Gilbert said, pressing her forehead to Jillian’s, “But if you’ll have me, I’ll teach you how to see new colors and feel textures that men just cannot provide.”

                “I’m gay. I’m... I’m one-hundred percent gay.”

                “You have nothing to prove, Jilly. You never have with me.”

                The engineer closed her eyes, “I just... for so long I thought that if I could push it down inside me, I’d feel so much better— but already the things you’re doing to me are driving me wild. Can you... can you show me everything?”

                Gilbert didn’t even have to answer.

 

 

 

                Lips pressed against hers while she felt hands unbuckle her pants, the zipper being pulled down in a controlled manner as Erin whispered positive encouragement into Jillian’s mouth. She felt her jeans slowly being pulled off her hips and lifted them into the air for better access. Gilbert let a hand rest on Jillian’s thigh, drawing slow and tantalizing circles. Jillian thought it would be better if she followed suit, pulling down Gilbert’s sweatpants, along with her boxer briefs.

                “Aren’t you heading fast?”

                “Shut up and touch me, oh my God, Erin just touch me!”

                “Shhh... I’ve got you...”

                Fingerpads trailed up the right side of Jillian’s thighs, and she finally managed to open her eyes— her face filled with messy white hair that glowed silvery in the lone moonlight streaming through the bedroom window. Erin’s index finger hooked around her waistband and gently tugged her lacy black underwear downwards at a tantalizingly slow pace.

                “Please... please...”

                When Erin’s fingers finally touched her folds, they made eye contact, and Jillian could’ve sworn that the image of her girlfriend’s eyes wide in wonder but full of knowledge, mixed with the memory of skilled digits slowly running across her cunt, would be painted inside of Jillian’s mind forever. She felt warmth of all things and let herself be touched, slowly spreading her legs further to accommodate for the width of Erin’s hand and letting out another moan when Erin finally touched her stiff clit.

                First there was a spark, then there was an ache. As though an itch needed to be scratched, and the only cure for this fire was Erin touching her more and more. An index and middle finger rubbed around her pearl in circles, occasionally stopping for a long stroke. Her body was in control of the situation far more than her mind ever could be, and she rolled her hips in rhythm to Erin’s hand.

                “You’re so wet.”

                “Oh... _oooohhhh_.... it’s for you, Gilbert. It’s all for you,” Jillian whimpered.

                Erin’s free hand interlaced with her right one, and her left hand harshly gripped the sheets with an intensity that Jillian slightly worried would rip them. It would be worth it, though, as her body became an earthquake and an avalanche, trembling with ferocity.

                Then the tips of Erin’s fingers entered her, and it was as though a new door had been opened.

                “Oh, I need more of that.”

                “Really? Come and get it,” Gilbert smiled into her shoulder.

                Jillian wasn’t sure what her girlfriend meant by that until she felt Erin’s fingers enter her again, but only just. She whined and lifted her hips, letting her body push onto the other woman’s digits and desperately wiggle around for friction. It felt so good, though withholding. She moved back and forth a little and dug her nails into Gilbert’s back. Thank God she was so wet, the alternative would have been unbearable.

                “Please.”

                “Please what? I want to hear you say it. I want you to mean it.”

                “Fuck me, Erin. Fuck me until I can’t move— fuck me so I forget my name. I need to feel all of you right here, right now.”

                Gilbert pressed a kiss to Jillian’s lips and began slowly pumping in and out. Two fingers felt small, but satisfactory. There was a stiff determination to them that shook Jillian’s core. As she pumped harder and faster, the other hand reached down to pay needed attention to Jillian’s clit. The result had the engineer screaming within seconds, bucking her hips and gripping Erin’s shoulders.

                “Oh... Erin! I’m going to... I’m going to come soon!”

                The older woman smiled, as though she knew something Jillian didn’t kn— oh. **_OH!_** Erin’s fingers inside of her cunt curled upwards and made a “come here” gesture that sent her flying through space. She could feel something spill out of her and down her legs, Erin’s hand tilting to capture the liquid in her fingers as Jillian left the goddamn solar system.

                She was frozen in place for ten seconds, her toes curled and her chest heaving as Erin lay on top of her. When Jillian finally regained control of her eyes, she watched as Erin licked her fingers— and it caused her hips to buck up again in excitement, even as the aftershocks of her orgasm rippled through her.

                “Watching you do that is hot,” Jillian whispered, a goofy smile breaking through.

                Gilbert shrugged, “Watching you come is even more fun, I promise you.”

                “Wow.”

                “Yeah. Wow.”

                 Jillian leaned her head back against the pillow and let Erin kiss her throat, “I... um... I need a second... that was... nothing like I’d imagined. I mean that in a good way, of course.”

                She looked down at the same time that Erin glanced up, their lips meeting in a bruising kiss— and Jillian felt newfound determination to give Gilbert the same, if not more enjoyable experience. She kissed her girlfriend over and over, the both of them letting out deep, happy sighs as the physicist threw an arm around Jillian’s stomach.

                “We’re not done here,”

                Jillian straddled Gilbert’s hips, still pressing kisses to the other woman’s mouth. She could feel some of her release still dripping down her thighs and nearly let out a moan at the thought. Erin sat up and wrapped her arms around Jillian’s core.

                “Under my bed, there’s a box. I need you to... I can’t usually get off on fingers alone,” Gilbert whispered, “I mean... I can sometimes but...”

                Jillian kissed her on the lips, “No worries.”

                She crawled to the side of the bed, nearly tossing the proton-cane across the room before pulling out a box full of various toys. She skimmed past some of the more intimidating-looking gear and plucked a vibrator into the air. Jillian pushed the box back under the bed and nervously held the dildo up.

                “Will this work?”

                “Yes, Jilly, just... just put that in me already, sweetie.”

                She pressed a final kiss to Erin’s lips and lowered her mouth to the physicist’s chest, tugging at one nipple with her teeth and raising the vibrator to the other one. She turned it on with the press of a button and gently rubbed it in circles around Erin’s right nipple.

                “ _Oooohhhh_... do you know how to do this?”

                “I may not have much experience with other people, but I have a decade and a half of my own creativity under my belt. Do you know how many nights... as soon as I realized I was gay... how many nights I came while thinking of you?” Jillian asked.

                “Fuck that’s hot.” Erin’s fingers cupped the back of her neck, “Did you use a vibrator when you touched yourself?”

                “I built it myself in the lab. Don’t tell the Mayor that he paid for it. Maybe next time I’ll bring it out, but for now...”

                Jillian didn’t know where this newfound confidence was coming from, yet she didn’t feel like complaining. She lowered the vibrator across Erin’s stomach, causing the other woman to hitch her breath, and then finally to her cunt. Jillian’s mouth followed, stopping to let her tongue play a little with Gilbert’s taut abs. Her free hand held Erin’s hips down amidst the whimpering and begging from the physicist.

                For a few seconds she was gently pressing the vibrator up against Gilbert’s bundle of nerves, gently moving in circles— causing Gilbert to scream and buck her hips with a wide smile— and then she slowly trailed the toy downwards. Her tongue flattened against Erin’s clit as the vibrator rested at the other woman’s wet entrance.

                “Be a good girl,” Jillian whispered.

                Erin pressed the back of the engineer’s head further towards her cunt, saying, “Fuck me so hard, babe. Fuck me till I can’t stand.”

                “You already can’t stand, at least not without the cane.”

                “Fuck, Jillian, you know what I mean— _PLEASE!_ ”

                She managed to flick the little switch and turn the setting up even higher. It was a little intimidating, having the toy vibrate against her chin. Then, while licking upwards with her tongue, she finally pushed the dildo in. Erin let out another scream but Jillian went to work; taking Erin’s clit into her mouth while pushing and pulling the vibrator at a safe speed. There was a light ache in her arm already, but she shrugged it off to give her girlfriend the attention she deserved.

                Jillian wanted to see what she was doing, abandoning Erin’s clit so she could sit up. As a replacement for the lost stimulation, she began pumping harder and faster with the vibrator, using her own thigh as a means of extra leverage to push the toy in further. Erin’s fingers dug into the back of Jillian’s thighs before trailing upwards and cupping her cheeks, nails digging in slightly. Jillian fell forwards, on top of Gilbert, and moved her hips and hand as fast as she could. Her forehead rested on Erin’s chest as she pumped in and out.

                “Oh.... Jillian... I... uuuuhhhh.... I’m.... JILLIAN!!!”

                 Erin froze beneath her, arching her spine and throwing her head back against the pillow. Jillian kept moving the toy, albeit at a slower rate, to draw Erin’s orgasm out as best she could. She may not have had a lot of experience with other people, but she could probably catch up pretty quickly. Somewhere near the end of Erin’s climax, she pulled the toy out and let it fall to the side of the bed. Erin pulled her close, still trying to form a single coherent thought, and Jillian let strong muscular arms wrap around her.

                “That was...”

                “Pretty good?”

                “Some of the best sex I’ve ever had,” Erin smiled, pressing a kiss to Jillian’s eyebrow. “Who knew you had it in you?”

                Dr. Holtzmann chuckled and let herself press up against Gilbert’s body. The room was warm and she reached a hand out to crack open the window above their heads just a tad. If the consequence in the morning was that she would have to cuddle closer to Erin for warmth... she could live with that.

                Erin let out a moan and rested her forehead on Jillian’s, “I may very well be unable to walk in the morning. You and that vibrator are going to get very well acquainted in the future.”

                They both let out a small laugh and Jillian let her head drop down to Erin’s shoulder, finally closing her eyes. White and blonde hair mixed together as they tried to be as close to one another as possible— sleep begin to capture them like fish in a net, and the both of them welcomed the night’s drowsy kiss. The last thing Jillian remembered before drifting off was the calming feeling of Erin's fingers tracing patterns into her back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo! tiddies!! 
> 
> Leave comments as always and tell me what you think of my sad attempt at sin!
> 
> Art is by Rootproxy, as always!


	14. Possessed

 

                Jillian leaned into Gilbert, exhausted after the bust they’d all just gone through. They were down in Rhode Island for the day, and everyone had voted to stay at a hotel after the beating they’d taken in capturing this ghost. Worst of all, Jillian had gotten possessed by the ghost, her body slamming into the walls and flying around not of her own accord. Her gun aiming at the others and clumsily trying to slam the proton streams into them. Abby had knocked her out cold before she could do any damage, the ghost flying into the air and being sucked into the trap.

                She shrugged it off like it was no biggie, knowing that Abby had recovered fairly quickly from Rowan (Kevin didn’t even know what’d happened to him). Throughout the ride to the hotel, Gilbert had sat with her, stroking her hair and assuring her that it was okay; they were all relatively unharmed.

                “Possession is 9/10ths of the law,” Erin joked.

                “Do you even know what that... never mind.”

                When they got to the rooms, Abby and Patty notably sharing one and Gilbert practically tugging Jillian into another, sleep knocked her out cold. She felt an arm wrap around her and Gilbert kissing the back of her neck with a smile. The duvet pulled over her shoulders and she had a feeling of relief simultaneously wash over her.

                “Take as much time as you need, baby.”

                Jillian awoke three hours later to find the room empty, and a handwritten note (on one of those pads of paper that hotels give you for some reason). Gilbert was down at the hotel bar for a drink if Jillian wanted to join. She shrugged on her sweater and closed the door, nervously triple checking that she had her key, and hopped into the elevator— with its glass wall she could see down into the lobby below, instantly finding Gilbert sitting alone at the bar.

                “Hey,” her girlfriend said, once she’d arrived. “You feeling any better?”

                “Yeah. I just... it was hard to deal with immediately after it happened,” Jillian nodded, quickly ordering a very dry martini, “Like when you’re electrocuted and you have to stand there and let it run through your hand.”

                Gilbert’s hand raised to the engineer’s cheek, gently stroking her face with the pad of her thumb. Jillian scooted the barstool closer and accepted the glass from the bartender. They sat in silence for a few moments before Jillian spoke up.

                “It was a lot like looking through a kaleidoscope. Every time I thought I had a little focus of what was going on, he would shake up every sense and jumble me around in my own head. The moment I felt actual clarity was when I... I hit you with my gun. Thank god Abby shoved me against the wall when she did.”

                “You couldn’t have helped that.”

                “Erin, I almost hurt you... I could never forgive myself...”

                Gilbert took a sip of her drink and laughed, “You cannot guarantee that we don’t get hurt in this profession, it’s kinda part of the job.”

                Jillian reached out and grabbed Erin’s hand, “I just want you to know that I’d never do anything to hurt you. I mean it. If... if something happens like that again, and a possessed me tries to attack you— please promise me that you’ll knock me out before I hurt you.”

                The other woman gripped her cane until her knuckles went white, her eyes looking somewhere in the distance and a little too glassy. Jillian brought her back with a single kiss, whispering “let’s get out of here” and slamming a twenty down on the counter. They walked back to the room and Erin pressed her face into Jillian’s neck as the elevator rose.

                “I promise, Jilly. But I know you can build us some sort of anti-possession tiara or something.”

                “A flower-power crown.”

                “Exactly,” Erin said, giving Jillian a kiss.

 

.               .               .

 

                The promise caused a slight strain between the two that Jillian didn’t understand. She tinkered around in the lab with a cloud of worry hanging over her as Erin escaped early from work almost every evening without saying goodbye to the team. Eventually, Jillian would feel her slip under the covers around midnight and pull her tight— the engineer electing to ignore the faint scent of alcohol on Gilbert’s breath.

                She took care of Skyscraper and Mrs. Nesbitt while Erin did what it was she needed to do— she wasn’t coming home shitfaced drunk, just a little tipsy. And the cane’s proton signature could be traced in case of an emergency. But she always showed up for work at nine every morning looking as though she’d gotten plenty of sleep.

                Jillian knew that Erin would tell her what was up when she was ready, she just wasn’t expecting to come across the physicist in this state... and in this location.

                One of the problems with being a publicly antagonized scientific research center was that businesses didn’t consider it a good investment to start partnerships with the Ghostbusters. As a consequence, Jillian often had to buy materials online, salvage through the dump out in the countryside, or her least favorite— going dumpster diving. She decided to return to Seth’s, the gay bar that she and Erin had gone to, and search there; asking for permission of course.

                “Not sure what you’ll find back there beyond people having drunk sex and the occasional alley cat. Might be some wood you can salvage, but other than that we don’t produce a lot of waste. Check anyways, and let me know if you come up with anything useful,” Mellissa said. “And here, have a beer on the house— good to see Gilbert finally got a girl, she’s been whining about you forever.”

                The blue haired girl opened the backdoor to Seth’s and Jillian went to work, wearing a garbage bag over a ratty sweater, jeans that she’d bought at the thrift store just for this use, and some thick rubber gloves.

                Within minutes she found a set of plumbing pipes that she could use, a perfectly good ukulele, and someone’s set of keys. She rummaged through for another half an hour, then stuffed her newfound findings into a cardboard box, ready to head home. She felt like a pirate, or a mad scientist. Both. Maybe she ought to have people start calling her ‘Holtzmann’ again.

                The tinkling of a breaking bottle further into the alley intrigued her, causing her to turn on the ball of her right foot and set the cardboard box down. She whipped out her phone and turned on the flashlight.

                “Hello?”

                A blue light at the end of the alley, and she knew that could only be one thing— a ghost. Without her gear, she would be helpless to stop the apparition if it was malevolent. Yet she crept up towards it, hiding behind a set of trash cans. It was the ghost of a boy, though his back was turned, and she could hear crying as well, that of a woman’s.

                “Hey, you leave her alone, alright? There’s no need for violence,” she calmly spoke. If she needed to, she had a small proton taser she could use to stun him and rescue whoever was crying.

                The boy turned, and he glowed so brightly that Jillian couldn’t make out his facial features. Then, the flew into the air, up and over the apartment building that Seth’s was attached to. At least no one got hurt, though Jillian stepped over half a dozen broken beer bottles as she approached...

                “Gilbert? Is that you?”

                The older woman sniffed and drunkenly wiped her nose, “Leave me alone.”

                Jillian put the proton taser back into her pocket, shifting the cardboard box under one arm and supporting Gilbert with her other. The proton cane wouldn’t really serve and purpose, so she pressed the button to collapse it, stuffing it in the box as well. She let Gilbert lean into her as much as needed— the physicist terribly incoherent in her ramblings.

                “Come on, babe, let’s get you home... no, I’m not mad at you, sweetie. We’ll get you a hot bath and a cup of tea, okay?”

                “I’m so sorry, Jilly. Possessed...”

                “It’s okay. The bust was weeks ago, I’m fine! It’s me, your girl!”

                “No... possessed me... he’s gone now... he was really nice, just wanted to see what... what it was like to possess someone... said he needed some information that I had, and then left after he’d spent... a few minutes... in my head...”

                Jillian glanced at the night sky, where the ghost had disappeared to. He hadn’t seemed malevolent, but she went ahead and sent a text to Abby to lock down the lab and setup the anti-specter security system before carrying Gilbert to the nearest taxi and heading to the firehouse.

 

.               .               .

 

                “I... I... um... I don’t want to push you, Erin, but if you have a problem you need to tell me about, I’m happy to sit here and listen. You shouldn’t have to hold anything in, and relationships are built off of support for one another.”

                They were lying in Jillian’s bed together, after a long day of busting. Erin had finally approached Jillian and asked for the chance to explain her drunken mishap the other night— to which the engineer said she was simply worried about her, and not angry in the slightest.

                Gilbert took a sip of coffee, adjusting the blanket around her shoulders as she scratched Mrs. Nesbitt’s head. She shivered and sniffled a little, “I don’t know if I’m ready.”

                “Is it about Phil hitting you?”

                “Worse than that...”

                Jillian tentatively reached out, gripping Erin’s shoulder. What she didn’t expect was for Gilbert to fall into her chest and start crying. She rested her chin on Gilbert’s head and wrapped her arms around the physicist.

                “It wasn’t a car accident,” Gilbert whispered.

                The old, Columbia version of Jillian Holtzmann would have said something snarky, such as _“I suspected as much”_. Instead, the engineer kissed Erin’s forehead and whispered, “Tell me what you can.”

                A deep, long sigh from somewhere beneath her, “When I was in a relationship with Phil, everything was just as I’d hoped— I mean, he was rich and dressed well, always cleaned up nice for dates and treated me to amazing dining. We had such fun outings that made me forget all about my work at Kenneth P. Higgins. For some reason, it felt so normal— and maybe that’s why he took it out on me. Because I’m not normal. Don’t try to convince me otherwise; if I were an ice cream, I’d be anything but vanilla or chocolate.”

                “Tuti Fruti with gummy worms on top for sure,” Jillian said, pressing a kiss to Gilbert’s forehead. “Go on.”

                “It was small things, really, forgetting to do the dishes or bringing Skyscraper over when Abby couldn’t take care of her. The fights weren’t important, and I didn’t mind. I thought it was amusing, really. Maybe I pushed him too far— one day he wasn’t yelling, he just straight up hit me. Of course, he apologized, and I forgave him. Again and again and again. I let him hit me each time. Eventually, the fights turned to our line of work— he wanted me to give up on a career I’ve been at for twenty years and join him in Academia. I told him that I believed in ghosts and he pushed me.”

                “What... what do you mean?”

                Gilbert took a deep breath and wiped away a tear, her voice beginning to break, “He pushed me, and I tripped. I fell down two flights of stairs and broke my leg.”

                Jillian’s grip on Erin’s hand tightened, and she struggled to keep calm, “What did you do?”

                “Phil took me to the hospital right away, he was shaken up and felt extremely guilty about it the entire time. He paid for my medical bills and promised to keep paying for any additional costs, including physical therapy, as long as I didn’t go to the police. I figured it would be easier to do that then see him locked away but go into debt because of healthcare costs. We broke up in the hospital, and I hadn’t seen him until the Stonebrook Theater, though he called and texted me all the time.”

                Jillian took Erin’s face in her hands, gazing into teary blue eyes and pressing her forehead up against the physicist’s, “I’m never letting him touch you again. You hear me?”

                “Yeah,” Gilbert sniffled.

                “Someday, that son of a bitch is going to get what’s coming for him.”

                They cuddled close that night, whispering praises and affectionate words into each other’s ears. Jillian kissed Erin until she thought she might pass out from lack of oxygen, fearing a little that she’d never have quite enough time on this planet with Erin Gilbert, who no one truly deserved. She kept awake even after Erin had fallen asleep, as though she were some sort of guard standing watch over her princess.

                Though Gilbert, in truth, was a queen.

 

                The someday that Jillian mentioned... well... it came sooner than they thought.   

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone has a trash can, I'll throw phil into it for erin's sake
> 
> leave comments!


	15. Columbia, Part 1

               

 

                Jillian found Gilbert asleep on the couch covered in equations and reptiles. She gently removed Mrs. Nesbitt and Skyscraper one at a time (she didn’t understand how they could possibly get along but they did) and slowly compiled the equations into a folder— silent as space. She gently lifted Gilbert into her arms, figuring that she couldn’t weigh too much, and then remembered that Erin was all muscle.

                “Oh... this is not going to work...” Jillian mumbled to herself.

                “I mean, if you’re sure you can’t do it, I can walk myself to sleep.”

                The engineer smacked Gilbert on the shoulder, “How long have you been awake? Have I been pampering you this whole time?”

                Erin smiled, her eyes still closed, “It was very nice of you to clean up my messes.”

                With that, Jillian promptly pulled Erin to her feet and tugged her up the stairs. They fell into bed together and the physicist laid an arm across Jillian’s stomach. For a few moments, everything was silent. And then Gilbert spoke up again;

                “Do you think we’ll come back as ghosts?”

                “What makes you ask that?”

                “Well, I can’t help but wonder if there’s another side to all this— you know, like Heaven or Hell. All I really saw in the paranormal plane was a green tunnel, and I don’t know if there’s anything beyond that. If I had a choice, I’d come back as a ghost so I could keep working on what we do here.”

                Jillian took a deep breath, “I used to wonder about that stuff all the time after my friend... committed suicide. Especially because his dad said he went to Hell for being gay. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to believe, I only know what our science has told us, and... are you seriously humming _‘Heaven Is a Place on Earth’_?”

                “Maybe.”

                “I can’t have a single conversation with you, can I?”

 

.               .               .

 

                They sat on the couch together sharing BBQ flavored pizza. Gilbert was slumped up against Jillian’s chest with her feet dangling off the couch— telling some story about the time she and Abby went to Disneyland with the PKE meter and actually picked up an apparition signal in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

                Jillian listened contently as she stroked the physicist’s silvery hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. The younger woman’s locks were done up in a messy bun, having decided that Abby and Patty might faint if they were to walk in and see Jillian with sex hair, and a loose strand kept getting caught in her mouth as she pressed a barrage of kisses on Erin’s head.

                “That tickles,” Erin smiled.

                Jillian took the paper plates and set them on the table, then pulling Erin up into her lap, kissing her jaw. Still behind the other woman, her hand found its way under Gilbert’s shirt, eliciting a faint gasp as Jillian’s fingers traced her abs. She nuzzled the back of Erin’s neck with her nose, inhaling a whiff of perfume that made her a little lightheaded— in a good way, of course. Suffocation via Erin Gilbert wasn’t such a terrible way to die.

                Meanwhile Gilbert’s breath was hitched and she was squirming a tad as Jillian’s hands traveled upwards— delicately playing with her already stiff nipples. Erin decided to throw the ball back into the younger woman’s court by grinding her ass against Jillian’s hips. It felt good— really, really good. Jillian’s left hand was about to unbuckle the older woman’s jeans, in the midst of a faint moan from Erin, when she heard something;

                “... and so, we need to check out these sections of the University first, the art gallery and the language department. That’s where the most trouble has been.”

                Abby’s voice carried up the stairway, and they began to hear her footsteps. Jillian’s hands were off of Gilbert’s body in a flash, and she nearly groaned at Erin’s ass digging into her lap as the physicist shifted to scramble away. At some point, a foot kicked into her face and she fell backwards. They ended up on opposite ends of the couch and Erin mouthed a quick “sorry!” before Abby and Patty arrived. They were none the wiser, going over a PDF on Patty’s tablet.

                “We have a bust— it’s at Columbia of all places.”

                “Oh, that’s interesting,” Jillian squeaked, her fingernails fiddling with the lint on the couch.

                If Abby and Patty noticed anything, they didn’t speak it— instead choosing to dish out the details of their next bust. Something was causing trouble all over the university, and though security had initially suspected pranking and mischief, they quickly called the Ghostbuster’s number after witnessing a professor’s car float all the way up to the roof of the main stadium.

                Erin and Jillian silently packed their gear into the hearse, flashing nervous smiles at each other and winking. Patty and Abby loaded into the front seats and the historian rolled down the window to explain to Kevin that, no, they were not _enrolling_ in university, they were _busting_ at a university. He didn’t quite get it, and kept attempting to give Abby a bag of office supplies while Jillian and Erin got in.

                “But you need to be prepared! It’s our motto!” Kevin insisted.

                “No, honey, that’s the Scout motto. Ours is ‘If there’s something strange in your neighbor—’”

                Patty turned the engine on and pressed down on the gas petal, “We’re going to be late!”

                When they got there, it was hectic. Not Rowan-blows-up-an-entire-hotel-and-creates-a-vortex hectic, but still pretty bad. All they knew for sure was that there were four ghosts roaming around campus, and one ghost staying put in the Language Department.

                “Okay, Patty, Gilbert, and I will try and contain the outside trouble. Jillian, can you handle the indoors bust on your own?” Abby asked.

                The engineer nodded, “Get on the walkie talkie if something breaks— I’ll call if I need backup.”

                They all split up then and there, and Jillian pushed through the broken door to the building, wishing that she’d brought along her proton pistols. She hadn’t prepared for this bust, and it was going to kick her in the ass. Jillian pressed the button on her proton gun and let the energy power up the device, taking a deep breath and wishing that her anxiety would just go away for once.

                “H-Hello?”

                A rustling at the end of the hallway caught her attention. She quietly kept to the side of the corridor, with her back to the wall and her feet slowly taking steps to avoid making any noticeable noise. Thankfully, the students had all been asked to return to their dorms, far away from the mess of the ghosts, so there wasn’t any traffic to deal with. And Jillian had the advantage of knowing these halls from years of kissing ass.

                Now she was here to kick ass instead.

                She found the office where the rustling noise was coming from, not bothering to look at the name plate, and barged in without knocking.

                A blue apparition was sitting at the desk with his feet kicked up. She couldn’t discern a face, which worried her a little, but it’d happened before where a ghost wasn’t fully ionized yet and merely appeared as a cloud instead of a fully recognizable body. But faces were easier to communicate with, and she always made the effort of trying to figure out what a ghost wanted before she trapped them. Like Odd Thomas.

                He was wearing a hoodie and what Jillian assumed were khakis— it wasn’t as though she could tell by the color— with his sneakers resting on a pile of essays. The ghost also had shaggy, shoulder length hair and a cigarette in one hand, though instead of smoke rising into the air, it dripped ectoplasm onto the professor’s desk. Jillian didn’t know why, but she felt as though he wasn’t as dangerous as any of the other ghosts she’d ever come across.

                “Who are you?”

                Silence.

                “Why are you here?”

                Silence.

                “Are you malevolent?”

                Silence.

                “Where’s your face? Why can’t I see your face?”

                Silence.

                “Do you know the other ghosts?”

                Silence.

                “When did you die?”

                Silence.

                “How did you die.”

                Silence.

                “Can you show me what’s wrong?” Jillian softly said, “I can try and help you.”

                The ghost looked up, but didn’t say anything. Out of instinct, she defensively aimed her proton gun at him, ready to fire, when he suddenly floated into the air— as though he were a feather above a fire. Then, he merely passed through the wall without acknowledging her. And that seriously irked her, because now it was personal. She hadn’t groveled her way through the Columbia faculty only to be ignored by the Columbia ghosts as well.

                She stepped out of the office and followed the ghost towards the staircase. He made some sort of beckoning gesture that made Jillian freeze. This was it, she was going to die because she fell for a ghost’s “come and look, gullible is written on the edge of the roof” prank. Yet she followed, hefting her pack up each step as the ghost lazily glided to the next story. And the next. Eventually he floated through the emergency exit door at the top, and she was forced to stop and rewire the panel nearby so that the alarm wouldn’t set off; pushing through and sighing at what she found.

                Phil was at the edge of the rooftop in a crisp black suit, but cowering under the ghost— who seemed to be stopping him from... from... jumping.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm so sorry that I'm very late to the party. I was having a huge case of writer's block (which I apologize for), and I was also doing an Assassin's Creed marathon (which I will not apologize for). Also, I'm sorry that this chapter was so embarrassingly short, but I wanted to post this tonight before I got too far behind. 
> 
> Art by rootproxy!!
> 
> Leave comments... but be gentle with me... I'm very fragile and gay....


	16. Columbia, Part 2

 

 

                As soon as he saw her, he rushed towards her. Jillian didn’t know what to do but knew the extent of his history. He could do damage, and there was a fury in his eyes that she felt might be directed towards her. Especially with the combination of slurs he slewed in her face as he attempted to wrestle the proton gun out of her hands.

                “What the fuck are you doing?!”

                Phil elbowed her in the stomach, forcing a grunt out of the both of them. Jillian panicked and pressed the button near her thumb, trembling as tendrils of orange and blue light lit up both their faces. The proton stream began electrocuting him, and he gripped both of her arms as he seized and twitched. She didn’t know what was happening, and they stayed like that for a good twenty seconds as the stream burnt a hole in his stomach. And then something snapped in her. This man had hurt Gilbert. Tears streamed down her face as she let out a scream and pushed the proton gun further into his torso. Phil only smiled at this, his teeth lighting up in various shades of blue from the electricity as she shouted obscenities at him. She hated him, pure and simple. What he’d done to the woman she cared for was inexcusable, and even if it was only for a few moments, she wanted him to feel the same pain that he’d brought upon Erin.

                And then she realized what she was doing; stooping to his level like this. Coming to her senses, Jillian managed to kick him in the hip and separate the two of them; but the damage was permanent and extensive. Phil fell to the ground, a smoldering ruin of a man. All was silent for approximately three seconds, then she began freaking out.

                “Oh. Oh shit!” Jillian cried. “Get up! Wake up! No, no!”

                Phil was dead, his eyes hollow and focused on a world she couldn’t see. She slapped his face, even tried pumping his heart, but the smell of burnt flesh incapacitated her and forced her back up against the emergency exit door. Everything from his pale skin to his still twitching hands made her feel sick to her stomach, and she took a minute to try to process what’d happened.

                “What... what the fuck...”

                The blue ghost that’d led her here gently floated down to the body, then picked up her proton gun. He hummed softly as he pushed it into her arms, then helped her to her feet.

                “Did you know he was going to do that? What’s going on?!”

                The ghost shook his head, then tapped his ear with a lone index finger. She listened intently, realizing that there were sirens in the distance. The ghost glanced back and forth between Jillian and Phil’s body, and she began to piece something together.

                “D-Did he call the cops before I came here? Was that what you were trying to tell me?”

                The ghost nodded.

                “But... but... the university said that someone from the Language Department had called us. And Phil was the only one in the building, I mean, it’s Saturday evening. Why would he call both the Ghostbusters and the Police... why did he charge me?!”

                The ghost pointed towards the door, but she didn’t understand. As police cars parked outside of the Language Department, and men began rushing up the ladder towards her. She didn’t understand, putting her gun behind her back and stepping away from Phil.

                “We received a call that a woman matching your description was attempting to assault someone— shit, we’ve got a body!” a cop snarled into his radio. He pointed his pistol at Jillian, “Put your hands up!”

                “Wait! It wasn’t me! He used my proton pack!”

                It only got worse when the emergency exit door burst open, with Gilbert excitedly holding up a ghost trap, “We got the rest of them! How are things on your end... what... what happened here?”

                Jillian watched several expressions sail across her girlfriend’s face, felt her proton gun slipping out of her fingers as it happened. Comprehension. Then relief. Then confusion. Then anger. Then disgust. Then fear. The last three were notably directed at Jillian, and she realized that Gilbert was looking at her the same way that the physicist looked at Phil. Gilbert was seeing Jillian as violent.

                “What happened Jilly?” her girlfriend whispered in a strained voice.

                “Ma’am, you need to stay back, or else I’ll have to apprehend you for interrupting an arrest,” the officer warned. “Keep your hands up where I can see them!”

                “Jillian! What happened to Phil?!” Gilbert cried, dropping the ghost trap and letting it clank against the roof. “Did you kill him?!”

                “I don’t... know...”

                The engineer simply stood there, dumbfounded at all the events simultaneously occurring around her. The officer slowly moved closer towards her with his Glock still pointing at her heart, and she began to feel lightheaded. Did she just murder a man? Did he murder himself? No, of course not, she’d pressed the button— but he’d pressed the gun into himself. What... what was happening?

                She saw a blue light out of the corner of her eye, and suddenly a cold feeling swept over her— as though she’d taken a dive headfirst into a pool. Her feet left the ground and the anxiety left her body as the ghost possessed her. He flew her as fast as he could, just as Rowan had flown Kevin’s body around during the apocalypse, and her eyesight grew blurry.

                _Stay calm_ , a soft voice whispered, somewhere in the back of her head. _I’m going to get us to safety, but I need you to give me total control. I think Phil just tried to frame you for a murder, Holtz. I mean, for **his** murder._

                “Safety... murder... control,” she repeated, energy draining from her body.

                Sirens wailed below her as the ghost flew her body from Columbia. She heard a woman’s screaming and tried to figure out if it was Gilbert’s voice or her own. It didn’t matter in the end.

                _You’re not making this easy, but you always were a spirited fighter. Literally, considering your profession. It’s been almost twenty years and I still can’t figure you out, you know. Come on, I know a safe place, and I can get you a clean change of clothes there._

                “Twenty... years?” Jillian managed to mumble.

                _It’s me, Holtz. It’s your best friend, Austin. I always knew you’d find me, I just thought it’d be under happier circumstances._

               

.               .               .

 

                Jillian woke up in a warehouse, with an ice pack on her head. She sat up and wiped something from her nose— realizing almost instantly that it was ectoplasm. Jillian found a role of paper towels lying next to the cot she was on and used them to clean off her face.

                “Sorry, I needed to possess you to get you out of there,” a voice called from somewhere up above her. “That’s the biggest downfall to being dead. I mean, other than being dead.”

                Jillian sat up and began hyperventilating as soon as the ghost had mentioned death, all the events of the Columbia bust flashing through her brain. Her chest felt too tight for her heart and lungs, and her nails dug into the mattress as the engineer tried to get up. Tears fell down her eyes as she remembered Phil and Erin and the fact that she’d killed someb— a blue light floated down to the first story and she felt the cold sensation of possession wash over her once more. The ghost forced her to lay down on the cot again.

                _Sorry,_ he apologized. _I learned a while back that I can affect human’s emotions when I do this. I’m just going to calm you down before I explain everything. Holtz, I need you to relax, can you do that for me? Think of... uh... well, maybe not **her**... how about you think of your mom for me?_

                “My mom...”

                _Yeah. She always made the best brownies. You remember us playing together on the weekends and she’d leave us a plate on the picnic bench in your backyard. We’d be too busy talking and eventually would have to fend off the brownies from the ants! But they tasted amazing— if I could enjoy one food again, it’d be those brownies, Holtz. You with me so far?_

                “We... played together...”

                _People always say that you grow out of playing when you reach high school, but we didn’t really. I mean, if you count daydreaming while lying in the grass playing, then we did it all the time. You used to talk about the coolest inventions you were dreaming up, remember that?_

                “The... the cellphone controlled... robot...”

                _Right! And now look at you! You invent the most amazing stuff!_

                “To... hunt... ghosts.”

                _Hey, even I can admit that most of them are dangerous, not me of course. That... that sounds really horrible—  like a Not All Ghosts slogan. It’s just that I was never into haunting, really. Just wanted to find you and see if you could figure out why I’m a ghost still. It took a while for me to find you again, and I’m glad I caught you when I did. Are you ready for me to come out now? Calmed down enough?_

                “I... think... so,” Jillian said, her brow furrowing.

                She felt the cold sensation leave her, and her soul felt expanding— as though sharing a body with a ghost had squeezed it down. Jillian let out a gasp and clutched her head in discomfort before sitting upright and staring at the ghost. His face... was recognizable now, and she nearly let out a sob.

                “Austin Keith. You’re... actually a ghost? Why couldn’t you talk before? Why couldn’t I see your face?” Jillian asked.

                Austin the Friendly Ghost shrugged, “I think it had something to do with me being so far away from the place where I died, you know? It sapped a lot of energy— and it takes a lot to form a full figure— but I managed to end up in New York through the ley lines because of that apocalypse dude. What was his name? Ryan?”

                “Rowan.”

                “Right!” her childhood friend snapped his fingers, “He was a hot shot in the ghost world before you flopped his plan. Now he’s the laughingstock of the underworld. I managed to fly as far away from downtown as I could during the fight— I would have helped you if I’d known you were a Ghostbuster. Can you believe the irony of that? I’m a ghost and you’re the Po Po? The giant reversed portal that you guys made missed me by about three blocks, and I ended up selecting this abandoned warehouse as a good haunting spot. I may have stolen it from the Mafia.”

                “How... how did you know to go to Columbia?” Jillian asked, still blinking and attempting to piece the puzzle together.

                 “You saw me behind that one gay bar— and the irony of that is amazing, too— when I possessed your girlfriend. I just wanted to comb through her memories to find out why she was so down, I promise I didn’t do anything bad to her,” Austin said, holding his hands up defensively. “I... I relived that memory of that slimeball pushing her down the stairs and I knew that I had to do something about it. So I confronted him about it a few days later and he called your team. I don’t know how long he was planning to... do what he did... but I’ve got some buddies on the other side who’ve been saying there’s a new ghost flying around, talking about revenge, which isn’t usually cause for alarm because, like, every ghost is into the whole ‘revenge’ shtick—”

                “Austin,” Jillian interrupted, rubbing her temple with her eyes closed. She’d forgotten about his talent of talking faster than a machine gun could fire bullets.

                “Right. Sorry, I get carried away. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to talk to someone— and the possession really helped me get back the rest of my energy. That sounds creepy, let’s never do that again.”

                “Mutual agreement.”

                Austin nodded, “Anyways, I dragged your sorry ass to this warehouse and managed to get to your Ghostbuster headquarters before the rest of your team was released from questioning— you’re a fugitive, by the way— and a really handsome hunk showed me up to the lab, said I could wait around if I wanted to get busted and then went back to his receptionist job. I brought as much equipment as I could carry. Your pack’s over by the kitchen area, by the way. That’s some amazing engineering. Mrs. Ride wanted me to let you know that she really admires your handwork, but she’s haunting the NASA Center of Edwards Air Force Base in California, so she can’t really call you up herself. The LGBT ghosts are a really tight knit community, it’s actually kind of fun. We haunt Indiana together in a big group once a year. Makes up for the whole ‘being dead’ thing.”

                “What... what did you say earlier about Phil?”

                “Oh, yeah. Some of my buddies say they’ve spotted him on the other side, and they think he’s up to no good. In truth, I can’t do anything to stop him on either plane of existence, so if he’s got a plan, you need to be the one to face him,” Austin said, casually weaving around the rafters.

                “Why would he... have me murder him?”

                “Well first off, you’re wrong; you didn’t murder him, he literally put himself in front of your gun, which was aimed at him. But it did look like he was going to jump you, so I suppose you could’ve called it self-defense, if it weren’t for him calling the police beforehand. I think he did some delving into your guys’ research and figured out the direct method of becoming a ghost.”

                “Which is what?” Jillian asked.

                Austin shrugged, “Being murdered.”

                “That’s horrible. And it actually makes a lot of sense in our line of work. But that’s not the only way, right? I mean... you... you weren’t...”

                “Yeah, I know. There’s a really weird system in place for who gets to come back as a ghost and who gets to go onward. I don’t really know much about the metaphysical— no one really does beyond your cute girlfriend and the rest of your team.”

                “So Phil wanted to become a ghost... why?”

                “To escape from jail? I mean, I knew the truth about his major assault against Erin, and I’m assuming you do, too. His academic reputation would have been destroyed, too. But if he had someone murder him, it would make him a victim instead. We’ll figure out what he wants later, right now we need to do something about you. You were caught with a dead body before fleeing the scene via... horror movie style flying unconscious with your underwear showing.”

                “What?!”

                “Kidding, but everyone saw that your socks weren’t matching. At any rate, we need to make sure people can’t recognize Jillian the Murderer. I mean... Jillian the Self-Defender. Fugitive until further notice. I’ve got a few ideas for a superhero costume, if you’re interested.”

                “You’re just as annoying as you were when you were alive,” Jillian tiredly smiled.

                Austin laughed as he flew up to the second story, “It’s good to see you again, too!”  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been so slow on the update. The ol writer's block really loves to pay me visits. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Edit: The other ghosts during the Columbia bust were Austin's buddies. I'll be sure to mention that in the next chapter.


	17. Making Pokéballs Out of Ghost Traps

 

 

 

 

                Jillian felt like a different person, but she kind of liked the look. Austin and his pals had raided a thrift store (she insisted that he leave a twenty-dollar bill on the counter), and he’d brought her a leather jacket and overalls. And a silly crop top that said “one of the boys” on it. While they were out shopping, she’d done something about her hair, tangling it up into a crazy wave that no one who knew her would recognize. It took a small army of a million bobby pins to keep in place, yet the end result looked both chaotic and stylish. Jillian kept the yellow glasses, though. She only really wore them for Gilbert, thus the physicist would be the only one who be able to identify them.

                Meanwhile, she’d created a workspace to begin amping up the power in her proton pack. If she was going after Phil’s ghost, she needed to ensure she could capture him before he did lasting damage— whatever his plan was. Though the warehouse was rather barren, she managed to sneak into a shop a few buildings down when the workers all went out for pizza; they left the place unlocked long enough for her to tip toe in and out. She was also sure to cut the wires on their security camera, making a note to send them a new system courtesy of the mayor’s office. That was, if she managed to prove she was innocent. All she needed for that to happen was to capture Phil’s ghost and get him to confess.

                She also spent a lot of time fine tuning the ghost trap that Austin had stolen for her.

                “I don’t like the aura of those things— it really makes all my buddies feel hostile. Same with the proton guns,” Austin shivered. “A lot of ghosts who made it back from Rowan’s apocalypse say that those hurt like hell.”

                “What we do is for scientific research, but you have to understand that a lot of your kind haunt innocent people. And ghosts can get really violent— if there was a better way to reason with the majority of them, we’d have done it by now,” Jillian said. She glanced up at her best friend, lazily drifting among the rafters of the warehouse, “But I can see about making the traps more comfortable on the inside. Of course... I’d need a test subject to tell me what to improve...”

                Austin laughed a little, “Fine. When this is all over, we’ll see about making pokéballs out of ghost traps.”

                “You have a lot of catching up to do on Pokémon.”

                “Hey, I died a few years _after_ it came out, I still remember the basics.”

                Jillian’s screwdriver clanged to the table, and she took a deep breath— attempting to get a grip on the sorrow panging her chest. She glanced up, and realized that Austin was floating a few feet away from her, his eyes beckoning her to ask the question. So she did.

                “Why didn’t you tell me what was wrong?” Jillian whispered. “I could have helped you, we could have done something about your dad...”

                Austin floated down to a chair and clumsily knocked it around before he managed to sit on it. He took a deep breath, “I don’t know. I think it was the reason most people who commit suicide don’t go to other people about their problems— they’re afraid that the outcome might change for the worse. Or they’re just tired of it all. I didn’t see a future. I didn’t see myself becoming happier. I’m sorry that I made you go through so much depression— watching you in your senior year of high school slowly deny who you were inside because of me hurt the most, you know. I don’t think I’ll forgive myself.”

                “I will. I do, I mean. I forgive you completely. It might’ve happened some other way— me trying to believe I was heterosexual. It wasn’t until I met the rest of the Ghostbusters that I began to grow a backbone. It wasn’t until Erin that I knew I could feel safe again.”

                “Does she know that you... you weren’t the one to kill that slimy bastard?”

                Jillian took a shaky breath and felt the tears welling in her eyes, “She thinks I did it. She gave me this look that... that I’d let her down in the worst possible way. I stooped to his level, and I watched it break her when she found his body.”

                Austin tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but it merely passed through her (cold as a bucket of ice water). He thought about it for a few moments and then looked up, “What would you say if you could see her again?”

                “I’d apologize. Fuck, I’d grovel at her feet and try and explain that it was Phil.”

                The ghost smiled, “I think I have an idea. Go put on a hoodie, and maybe carry a proton pistol with you for safety. We’ll never know when Phil might attack, but that shouldn’t stop you from talking to Gilbert.”

                “Why do I get the feeling that you’re about to go sneaking around again?”

                Austin tossed her a few quarters, and she had to wipe the ectoplasm off of them, “Go make a phone call. There’s a haunting at Central Park, and they need someone to stop it.”   

 

.               .               .

 

                Jillian hid behind a tree, occasionally ducking around the trunk to try and spot her... girlfriend? Were they still together? Murder was a pretty good incentive to break up with someone, Jillian would give her that, but every fiber of her being hoped that Erin would give her another chance.

                She spotted the Ecto-2 park in the lot. Patty and Abby got out of the front seats and instantly went to fetch their gear. According to a newspaper that Austin had stolen, Jennifer Lynch had managed to keep the Ghostbuster business afloat on the grounds that they weren’t conspiring with one Jillian Holtzmann. Thus, they were still allowed to bust. Two of Austin’s ghost buddies, the same ones who’d helped him at Columbia, swooped down to distract Abby and Patty and caused them to chase towards the northern end of the park. Gilbert jumped out of the hearse and suited up, which was when she spotted Austin flying around the tree that Jillian was hiding behind.

                Erin ran towards the oak, and Jillian snatched her from behind— tackling the two of them into a cluster of tall bushes.

                “What the fuc— mmmph!”

                The engineer had clamped her hand over Erin’s mouth, allowing the physicist to struggle against her weight before slowly realizing who it was. Jillian kept silent, a remorseful expression on her face. Eventually, Erin relaxed and moved the engineer’s hand away from her mouth.

                “Jillian, what are you doing here?”

                “There’s no bust. I needed an excuse to talk to you.”

                “The ghosts are on your side now?” the physicist worriedly whispered. “This is some supervillain level shit. Jilly, what happened? Why did you shoot Phil?!”

                Holtz felt her eyes well up with tears, and she let her forehead rest against Gilbert’s chest as she began crying. Fingers gently cupped the back of her neck as she let her frustrations out into the older woman’s Ghostbusters jacket, slowly staining it with tears. There was a tension in Erin’s body, and Jillian worried that she believed the engineer to be absolutely crazy.

                “I didn’t... it was an accident. He rushed at me and I tried defending myself, but I used my proton gun and it killed him. I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry, Erin. I’m so sorry!”

                For a month, there was silence. Then Erin gently pulled the both of them to their feet and brushed her pants off. Jillian stood there with her, unsure of what to say but only feeling a mountain of regret piling up in her chest. Her eyes scanned every detail of Gilbert, trying to memorize what she looked like in this moment.

                “I trust you with my life, Jilly. If... if what you say is true, then I need to get to work to prove your innocence. I know you’re not at fault. But... why would Phil want to... want to kill you? He barely knew you.”

                “We think he wanted me to kill him so he could become a ghost. He’s already stirring up trouble in the underworld, according to Austin.”

                “Austin. Wait, you mean your friend from high school?”

                “He was the one that possessed me and helped me escape from Columbia. He’s the one that possessed you behind Seth’s, too. That’s why he was at the University, to confront Phil. Phil saw the opportunity and called the Ghostbusters and the Police— he framed me. Austin is helping me trying to figure out what Phil is up to. I just... wanted to see you again in case something bad happened.”

                Erin let out a small sigh through her nose and gently cupped Jillian’s cheek. The younger woman leaned into the touch and closed her eyes— however fleeting the moment was, it still felt like heaven. She felt lips gently press against her own and whimpered into the kiss, willing and wishing the entire universe to pause for just one second, then Erin backed away and left the bushes.

                “Stay safe, you crazy kid.”

                Jillian stayed there, leaning up against a tree and unsure of what she was going to do next.

 

.               .               .

 

                Dennis the Ghost lowered himself to the floor of the warehouse and crossed his legs, “We spotted Phil around Columbia this morning, Austin. That’s his death spot, therefore where he has to haunt for a little while, but he’s going to get strong enough to leave eventually. As far as we can tell, he’s acting alone.”

                Jillian unfolded her map of the city, “Alright, can you get a few ghosts to keep an eye for him in these locations? Especially the Mercado— no offense, but we can’t have another apocalypse.”

                “A lot of us were against Rowan’s ideas, even if we don’t show it, there are sensible ghosts out there,” Mike from Tacoma nodded. “The last thing we wanted is for armies of proton guns all over the world.”

                “In exchange for your help, I’ll convince Abby, Patty, and Erin to ignore calls for busts in this section of the state. You can have free reign, just don’t cause too much trouble, please,” Jillian smiled.

                The ghosts left, aside from Austin who floated over to her table of contraptions. She went to work on her proton taser, fiddling with the settings. Jillian was going to meet Phil on equal footing, and give him hell for what he’d done. But was she doing this as revenge for herself, or revenge for Erin? What kind of person did that make her? Would she still be worthy of the physicist after this?

                No. She’d have to leave New York. Erin had kissed her out of pity, or because she was confused about the whole ordeal. But she’d come around, and see what Jillian had done. The engineer would need to flee to somewhere safe. Maybe she could continue her ghost studies in secret— with Austin’s help. Jillian snapped her pencil in half with anger. She couldn’t go two months without fucking her life up again, one way or another. Maybe Phil even had the right of it— becoming a ghost and avoiding all your problems.

                Becoming a ghost...

                “What does it feel like to possess someone?” Jillian asked aloud.

                Austin shrugged and fiddled with the broken pieces of the pencil, “Controlling. Like you’ve just had seven cups of coffee and you’re given full reign of a Ferrari on an empty track. Plus, you get to feel all the physiological things that a body feels. I’d kinda missed that.”

                “What, like pain?”

                “Emotions in general. It’s what makes humans such interesting animals— we think based off of our feelings, but ghosts don’t really have many emotions beyond anger. Most of them. I just feel sarcasm and homosexuality the majority of the time.”

                “Enlightening. What would you say to helping me with an invention?”

                Austin perked up, “And that is?”

                “A device that strengthens the power of possession. I think we can defeat Phil if we work together,” Jillian grinned. “I’ll even make an anti-ectoplasm component.”

                “This is why we can’t have nice things,” Austin insisted before matching her grin. “Let’s do it.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to be told from... Erin's perspective?


	18. Forty Stories

               

 

                It was... empty at HQ. She let Skyscraper wrap around her arm as she sifted through the Columbia security footage that the police had shown her. They were skeptical that Jillian had killed Phil, and were willing to listen to her reasoning, but there was still the fact that she’d fled from the crime scene. Gilbert watched again and again as Phil rushed towards her, Jillian raising the proton gun in self-defense. Then Jillian let out a scream and pushed the gun into Phil’s stomach, his arms gripping her closer.

                Erin knew that Jillian was angry, but this was a little scary. There was a flash of pure rage on Jillian’s face— not a glimpse of evil, but rather a glimpse of uncontrolled emotion. Erin knew that Jillian would never hurt _her_ , but for the engineer to break peace to hurt Phil... it would take the physicist some time to get over it. And now this whole nonsense with good ghosts vs. bad ghosts. Erin was getting too old for this shit— perhaps she ought to listen to her parent’s advice and settle down. Get married. Have kids. Actively avoid apocalypses.

                Abby set down a cup of tea, “You know she had to do it.”

                “Kill him?”

                “He could’ve hurt her. He lured her to the edge of the roof, for God’s sake, Erin. What if she hadn’t have pressed the button. What if he’d thrown her off?”

                “Abby, she thinks he was trying to kill himself via her gun. Jillian thinks that he’s come back as a ghost. She’s going crazy.”

                Her best friend rolled up a newspaper and smacked Gilbert in the back of the head with it, “And that’s a crazy theory because? We literally hunt ghosts for a living, why would you think she’s lying to you? Is this because you have some fantasy that Phil still had a sense of morality? Because that’s just his abuse messing with you.”

                Erin pushed Skyscraper’s nose away from the hot mug of tea, mumbling something about wanting to be left alone. She wasn’t sure who to believe, leaning back in her seat and trying not to think of anything but the equation she’d been working on. It didn’t work— the recent events left her too shaken to even form a simple calculation, and what would it matter? Who were the Ghostbusters without Jillian? Or Patty? Or Abby? Or herself? There couldn’t just be three of them, they weren’t competent unless they were complete.

                She stood and opened the window near the lab, willing the cold New York air to drift into her. It brought some clarity, but not enough. She’d spent months trying to convince herself that Phil didn’t mean it when he pushed her, that it was an accident. Months of repressing the truth and telling people that it was a car accident had forced her to believe that it really had been one. How could a professor at an Ivy League college hurt her? And it’d been her own fault, she’d poked and prodded him with stupid arguments for months leading up to the incident. Their relationship was doomed to fail. Maybe Jillian was wrong, and Phil really was innocent. Maybe all of this was an accident, and nobody was to blame.

                The untouched cup of tea rattled on the table. Erin glanced around at all the monitors and gauges that Jilly had set up in the lab— in case one of the ghosts escaped its trap. They were slowly rising in Ionization percentages, but the traps remained still.

                She could feel it. There was a ghost loose in the lab.

                Erin set Skyscraper down in her bed and fetched her proton cane off of the couch, her index finger resting on the button. She would be ready if a trap broke loose. She would be ready. She would be ready—

                Phil swooped up from behind and possessed her. Gilbert never stood a chance.

 

.               .               .

 

                _Argh, dammit, stand still! That brat, Austin, made this look so easy. He’s had twenty years to explore being a ghost, though. I’ve only had a few days. But I think I can control this._

                Erin tried to ungrit her teeth, but no words came out of her mouth. Not even a grunt as Phil struggled against her mind. He forced her to collapse the proton cane and stuff it into her back pocket. Skyscraper lifted her head and watched as the physicist awkwardly walked to the stairs, unable to control the actions of her body.

                _That’s it. Let’s just get you out of this building. I’ve got a good place downtown that’ll work._

                She tried to ask what he was doing. What his plan was, or where they were going. Nothing escaped her lips as Phil forced her to wave goodnight to Abby and Patty. It appeared that Phil wasn’t strong enough to make her fly away, so he grabbed the keys to the Ecto-2 and forced her to tell Kevin that she was going to get some food downtown. Finally, as he drew her hoodie over her face, she managed to mumble out some words in protest;

                “Where the fuck are you taking me, Phil?”

                _Shush, shush, don’t attract any attention, you stupid woman._

                Never. Never in her life had she felt this powerless, this gross inside. She wanted to throw up as Phil forced her into a taxi. All over energy funneled into trying to kick the driver’s seat, to get him to call the police. But Phil kept her controlled. The taxi took her into downtown Manhattan, and the entire time was Phil keeping her eyes closed and her hands to herself. He even blocked out her hearing— this was full blown kidnapping, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

                _Why are you doing this?_ she managed to think.

                _Erin, you are my queen. Together, we’re going to rule the world. We’re going to finish what that moron started a few months ago. With my charisma, and your knowledge of the ghost world, we’re going to create a proper army. And now that the police is hunting down your little friend, the Ghostbusters are broken up, and can’t stop us._

                Gilbert nearly let out a cry, but her lips remained shut. _No_ , she thought. _You can’t do this._

                Phil didn’t answer her, merely forcing the physicist to pay for the taxi ride and exit the cab. She looked up, taking in the familiar landmark and nearly crying. The memories of this place were too painful, and even with all of her energy struggling against Phil, it still wasn’t enough. The Mercado still looked beautiful as it had during the apocalypse, and hotel patrons weaved around her as Phil took in their surroundings. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.  

                _My queen. Shhh. You deserve to live in a palace, Erin. You deserve so much more than dumpster diving with a repressed freak like Jillian Holtzmann. Time to make you a queen, Erin._

                He didn’t take her into the fateful basement, though. Gilbert grew more and more confused as they passed Rowan’s old hideout and instead he led her up the stairs of the Mercado and into an elevator. The ride up was silent, and for a few brief minutes, she’d stopped struggling out of curiosity. What was he... what was Phil going to do?

                He led her down a hallway and pickpocketed a set of keys from a passing janitor. Then, he forced her to unlock a panel and press a button to deactivate the emergency exit. He pushed the door open and she realized that they were on the roof of the Mercado— forty stories in the air.

                _I’m going to make you a queen. I’m making you a queen, he repeated. You’re mine now. You’ve always been. We’re going to rule together, Erin._

                He walked her to the edge, and it made sense. Phil was going to kill her.

                “What if I don’t come back as a ghost?” she asked through gritted teeth.

                _Highly unlikely, but even then I still get free reign without interference from your frivolous friends, my dear. I’ll make you a ghost. I have to. Now stand still. We want to remember this moment. Can you believe it, Erin? We’ll be together forever._

                Gilbert was too weak to struggle, and the image of the New York City skyline at night made her poor heart practically seize from fright. She knew that Phil knew of her fear of heights. And he was still going to kill her this way. The physicist had enough control to close her eyes.

                “Just do it,” she muttered.

                _That’s my girl. I knew you never learned any different from our fighting— you’ve always known who was really in charge._

                Phil forced her to step off the edge, and she kept her eyes closed, hoping that it’d be quick.

                She was falling.

                Falling.

                Falling.

                Gilbert was going to die.

                Here’s the thing— when you’re about to become paste via gravity and get slammed into by an unknown force, and go tumbling into some poor patron’s hotel room, you tend to get a little confused. She heard Phil screaming in the back of her head, and tried to make sense of why she still wasn’t falling, but Gilbert had always suspected that death would come across as a strange sensation.

                She managed to open her eyes and realized that, not only had she safely crashed into a room instead of splattering into the streets forty stories below, but that Jillian was floating in the air just outside of the broken window. Like some sort of beautiful superhero, with her hair wildly floating around in the wind. Blue ionization trailed off of her body like smoke, and Erin marveled at the sight. Her girlfriend could fly now?

                “Let her go, Phil!”

                The voice that’d come out of her girlfriend’s mouth was both male and female, and realized with a start that Jillian was possessed as well. Though... it seemed that the possession was consensual, and the armbands on Jillian’s wrists glowed blue with ionization. The engineer had crafted some sort of tool that allowed her to partially control whatever ghost was possessing her, and Erin couldn’t help but feel pure pride. Phil forced her to stand and shake the broken glass out of her jeans.

                “Should’ve known you would arrive,” he forced her to spit out. “Guess I’ll have to deal with you and your pet before I can make my queen.”

                He forced the words out of her before she could stop him.

                “You’re a _despicable_ girlfriend, you know.”

                Jillian faltered a little, “That’s not you, Erin. That’s Phil talking.”

                Gilbert’s mouth continued moving, even as she struggled against him. Her body fought for control and Phil had to grip the overturned table nearby to get out the next words;

                “You’re disappointing. You’ve never amounted to anything. She’s only dating you because you’re both gay— she pities you. It’s pathetic. I can see all of her thoughts, Dr. Holtzmann. What a surprise, she also thinks you’re a fucking disappointment in bed. She couldn’t even confide in you about my relationship with you, what makes you think she wants you here? Oh, the thoughts you wish you could hear from her.”

                “You wanna know how I know you’re lying?” Jillian slowly said. “The real Erin’s a flaming bisexual. She’d never pass up on the opportunity to remind a straight man that, moron.”

                Growling, Phil reached into her back pocket and pulled out the proton cane, extending it with a harsh flick and pressing the button light it up with nuclear energy. Jillian and Austin had come prepared, though, as the blonde woman pulled out her proton pistol and flew into the room. It was almost a Deus Ex Machina moment, even as Jillian shouted and apology and shoved Erin against the wall. Though she couldn’t voice it, Phil still controlling her voice, she wanted to tell Jillian it was okay to hurt her— as long as she got this wicked monster out of her body.

                _Just hurt me, please. End it_ , she wanted to say. _Get him out of my fucking body. I don’t care if you kill me, I forgive you for everything, just do it!_

                “Austin! Go up!”

                Jillian’s body flew above Erin, and she nearly let out a scream as a proton grenade was thrown beneath her feet. Of course, they were designed to only hurt ghosts, but in possession Phil shared his pain with Erin as the device exploded. She felt as though she were on fire, and tears welled in the corner of her eyes. Though grounded, he collected himself and forced Gilbert to swing the proton cane into Jillian’s stomach. No doubt she felt both the physical pain of the blunt force, and the nuclear energy attacking Austin. They fought back and forth, both women trying to force the ghost out of the other. Austin and Jillian were more coordinated, though, and they managed to pin Erin and Phil up against the wall.

                “I’m going to get him out of there, baby. Just hold on,” Jillian cried. “Austin, go!”

                The ghost flew out of Jillian’s body and into Erin’s. She physically let out a jarring scream at the feeling of two apparitions fighting within her, the absolute pain of it. Jillian grabbed something off of her proton pack, but Phil managed to take control for a few seconds.

                While the engineer was distracted, the slimy bastard forced Erin to slam the proton cane into the younger woman’s head. Erin felt tears slipping down her cheeks as soon as she heard the harsh _CRACK!_ and Jillian fell to the ground with a groan, nearly unconscious. Meant for hitting ghosts rather than something so solid, the cane broke in half from the blow.

                “Oh god, no!” she cried out against Phil’s possession.

                _Shut up, just let me take control and we can get back to where we were. I’ll make you my queen, Erin— DON’T LISTEN TO HIM! I’M GOING TO GET HIM OUT OF THERE— you deserve a palace, Erin. We’re going to rule the underworld together— HAVEN’T YOU EVER HEARD OF CONSENT YOU SHITTY EXCUSE FOR A PROFESSOR?!— no one can stop us, Erin, just let me get you to the window. I’ll finish what I started._

                The ghosts fighting in her head nearly made her pass out. She found herself pushed against the wall as Phil and Austin continued to wrestle for control of her body.

                Austin managed to tear Phil out of Erin’s body, and she fell to the ground— throwing up ectoplasm. Gilbert slumped against the wall and tried to see through blurred, traumatized eyes. From what she could tell, Austin and Phil were wrestling around the room as the boy attempted to keep the older man from escaping. Both of them were yelling in some language that Erin couldn’t understand— as though there was a dialect that only ghosts could speak. She wouldn’t be surprised.

                Jillian groaned again and managed to look up. Erin winced at the huge welt on her head, knowing that the engineer likely had a concussion, and pulled her to safety against the wall.

                “What’s your plan?!”

                The engineer showed her the ghost trap, “You remember when we put two ghost into a trap during that bust a few months ago? And then it blew up when I hit it?”

                “Oh my god... the faulty traps... you have one of them with you?”

                Jillian clutched her head in pain and groaned, weakly passing her the pedal, “You need to do it now, while Austin is wrestling Phil! We’re not going to get another chance!”

                “But Austin will be destroyed!”

                “No he won’t! Just trust me on this!”

                Gilbert barely had energy in her to lift her legs. She’d never have the strength to stand and stomp down on the pedal, so she slammed it against the wall with her hands. The ghost trap opened up and began sucking in both Austin and Phil. Then Jillian pressed a series of buttons on her armbands, untangling Austin from the trap just as the former professor began howling in anger. The reverse tractor beam slowly pulled Phil in, and he attempted to grab anything he could, ripping off the leg of a table as the trap pulled him in. Jillian’s armbands absorbed Austin and he possessed her again as Erin slammed the pedal on the trap, then kicked it with everything she had left. The trap went flying out the window and down forty stories, exploding when it hit the pavement.

                Gilbert staunched the bleeding on her arms from having smashed through the window and crawled towards the edge. From what she could tell, Phil’s ghost was now a puddle of goo, good and done for. Maybe the Ghostbuster’s traps weren’t as sturdy as they could have been, but for the second time they proved a strength in self-destruction. Phil was gone for good. She glanced back at Jillian weakly pressing the button on her armband and watched Austin forced out of her. He let out a whoop and circled the room.

                “We did it!”

                The physicist glanced down at the armbands on Jillian’s arms, “What the heck is that?”

                “While I was on the lam, we invented the Human Ghost Trap. Utilizing possession to keep a ghost contained. Austin wasn’t in control, and I could still use his powers,” Jillian said.

                Erin crawled over to her and pressed her hand against Jillian’s headwound, “I’m so sorry.”

                Before she fainted from the concussion, the engineer managed to give her a shy smirk. Erin felt blood slowly seeping through her hand and glanced up at Austin with a desperate look of pain. He took that as his cue to go get help. Gilbert managed to get out another apology before slumping her head against Jillian’s chest and fainting as well. The cold, nighttime air wrapped around both of them, amplifying the pain of the wounds that they’d caused each other. The last thing Gilbert could hear was the sound of emergency responders kicking the door open.

                It was over.

                 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It sounded a lot cooler in my head. Leave comments?


	19. Erin Gilbert, From Outer Space

 

 

                She counted three pencils in her hospital bed thus far, and took a deep breath as she felt Gilbert try to stick another writing utensil in her hair without noticing. Jillian had regained consciousness about three minutes ago, but decided to let her girlfriend have her fun. She felt a pencil balance on her nose and accidentally sniffled.

                “Aww, I was hoping to get to five before you woke up,” Gilbert sighed dramatically, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed.

                Jillian opened her eyes and squinted from the light hurting her head for all of five seconds before the physicist leaned over and adjusted the little dial near the bed, dimming the overhead lights. Gilbert gently smoothed out Jillian’s messy blonde hair, carefully avoiding the bandage, and then leaned down to press a kiss to the engineer’s forehead. Jillian pretended not to notice the many stiches adorning Erin’s arms, or the defeated look in the older woman’s eyes.

                “Are you alright?”

                Gilbert took a deep breath, “That question is more loaded than a meatball marinara from Subway. All in all, I’m going to be okay, but this all has been a little... terrifying to think about. I nearly lost you.”

                “How long have I been out?” Jillian asked.

                “A week. The doctors said your brain showed small signs of swelling from... from the cane.”

                Jillian’s hand raised up to cup Erin’s cheek. She let a lone tear slip down from the corner of her eye and weakly shook her head, “That wasn’t you.”

                “But it was my body that carried out the action. What if he’d forced me to hit any harder? I could have killed you, Jillian. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for the rest of my life. If I’d been stronger, I could have fought the possession. I could have prevented all this if I’d just gone to the police about Phil all those months ago—”

                “Stop it. You’re not responsible for a grown man’s sadistic actions. Thank goodness we know how to professionally handle ghosts. If this had happened when we were civilians, we would have died for good. Erin... are you sure you shouldn’t be in bed, too? I mean... you had two ghosts possess you at once.”

                “I’ll be okay. Believe it or not, Austin has been walking me through it. He knows how to calm people down.”

                Jillian scooted over in her hospital bed, well, as much as she could with an IV sticking out of one arm and heavy weight in her head. She gestured for Erin to join her, and the older woman took the hint rather quickly. Gilbert slithered into the hospital bed, checking that no doctor would wander in, and pulled the thin blanket over the both of them. Wordless kisses were shared, and Jillian felt an abundance of hope return to her as Gilbert’s slender fingers weaved through tangled blonde hair. They were still together. They were going to be okay.

                “I love you,” Gilbert whispered into her mouth.

                Jillian felt a little shocked at first, managing out a squeak before a proper reciprocation was muttered. She gripped Erin’s bicep and whispered “I love you” back to the physicist no less than a dozen times. Her finger twirled around a strand of silver hair, and she hugged Gilbert close to her chest before falling asleep; more content than she had been in days. Weeks. Months, even.

 

.               .               .

 

                The first think the women wanted to do, out from the hospital, was check the news. It’d been a week and a half since the incident, and Jillian was interested in learning why she wasn’t currently sitting in a jail cell charged for murder. The official story was that the Police found a journal written by Phil detailing his progression into madness, and that this was all a big case of self-defense on Jillian’s end. The unofficial story was that Abby, Patty, and Austin had stormed into the Mayor’s office and delivered solid (figuratively in Austin’s case) testimonies about Phil’s abuse of Erin and his plot to murder the physicist. It would appear that Jennifer Lynch had never met a ghost in person, and she was so intimidated by the boy’s fully ionized presence that she whipped up a pardon before they even got to Patty’s testimony.

                “Erin told me to mention something about ‘ghost snakes’ and that’d get her to sign you a pardon quicker,” Austin said, playing around with the PKE meter. “Hey, Abby, why does this start spinning faster when I point it towards my—”

                Abby swiftly took the device out of his hands and shooed the ghost towards the other end of the lab. Jillian was comfortably resting in her armchair, allowed to only work on one device per day until she’d fully recovered (Gilbert’s rules). In her hands was the beginnings of a new proton cane, complete with a ghost radar and alarm. Patty was in the archive section of the second story, cross referencing everything she could about the ghost language, and beginning to compile translations based on what Austin could teach her. The Ghostbusters were beginning to understand why so many attempts at peace with ghosts over the past thousands of years had gone sour— neither party could understand each other.

                Meanwhile, Jillian’s legs were propped up on Erin’s lap. The physicist was completing a beautiful sketch of Austin to include in the sequel to Ghosts of Our Pasts (Both Literally and Figuratively). Austin, same as his high school personality, loved to pose. He even suggested one where he held the proton guns, to which Abby and Patty fiercely shut him down. They weren’t sure what to make of the ghost yet, but if he had Erin and Jillian’s trust, it was good enough for them. There were rules, of course, he wasn’t allowed on busts unless he was possessing Jillian’s armbands (for PR reasons, and because they didn’t want him getting hurt), he had to have supervision in the lab, and he had to use the door like any other sentient being— though the last one wasn’t because Austin had floated through a wall and interrupted someone’s privacy, but because Kevin thought he could float through walls, too, and ended up with a nasty bruise on his forehead while playing tag with the ghost.  

                “Alright,” Abby sighed, “We need to work on the Human Ghost Trap. Some sort of device that allows us to siphon a ghost from the armbands into a proper trap.”

                Austin floated above her and curiously picked at the armbands, “Haven’t you heard? Ghosts are now USB compatible.”

                “Ha, ha, ha,” Abby deadpanned. Then she straightened up, “Wait, can you actually possess electronics?”

                “How else do you think I got Patty’s Spotify? There’s some fine playlists on her account.”

                “Yeah, stay away from my stuff,” the historian muttered from her desk.

                Jillian felt Gilbert lazily drawing circles on her thigh, and nearly let out a laugh at the tickling sensation. Her hand found Erin’s, and she gripped it with a smile, allowing Erin to lace their fingers together.

                Even Ghostbusters could find themselves at peace, it seemed.

                Gilbert ran her thumb over Jillian’s knuckles for a few seconds before they made eye contact. Jillian saw a dark hunger in them and straightened up. They stared at each other for all of a minute before Jillian broke, heading up to the sun room on the roof. After a few minutes, she heard a small clicking from downstairs as Gilbert followed her. A hand gently cupped her cheek and she leaned into the touch with a wide grin, her heart already racing.

                “I missed you so much,” the physicist smiled.

                Jillian pressed her forehead against her lover’s, taking in a deep breath and letting go of everything that’d happened in the past few weeks. The sensation of fingers lightly resting on her cheek grounded her, but only a little. Another part of her felt as though she were floating in the clouds, and she held onto that euphoria as Gilbert slowly unbuttoned her flannel. The fabric slid off her shoulders in a tantalizingly slow manner, and for once the sex wasn’t about being rough or hot or passionate. It was simply about love. Lips rested on Jillian’s collarbone, a small nip here and there by teeth causing her to let out wispy gasps as she gazed at the New York City skyline— rain beginning to roll in and splatter on the glass roof above their heads.

                Her shirt finally fell to the floor, and a pair of skilled hands unclasped her bra. She pulled Erin’s tank over her head, the sports bra following. They hugged each other, standing in the middle of the sun room and pouring an unseen energy into each other.

                Gilbert gently pushed her down to the couch and kissed her, “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

                “Yeah. Just make love to me.”

                “We’re... we’re making love,” Erin smiled in a goofy manner.

                Jillian kissed her, “Yeah, you dummy. I love you.”

                “I love you, too.”

                 

.               .               .

 

                And when the paparazzi started circulating rumors about a golden ring on Dr. Jillian’ Holtzmann’s finger, she merely sent a few of Austin’s ghost buddies to haunt them. They had no choice but to call the Ghostbusters for help, and in lieu of payment offered to stop publishing tabloid articles. They weren’t wrong, though. Jillian rather liked the ring. She couldn’t stop fiddling with it on the big day.

                “I still think you guys should have your own TV show,” Austin said, as he adjusted the tuxedo he’d managed to conjure. “Can you imagine if I became the first ghost celebrity?”

                Jillian rolled her eyes and adjusted her dress, “We already do interviews, and you should be thankful the government hasn’t stolen you away for testing.”

                “Puh-lease, the secrets I know about them. Do you know how quickly political gossip travels in the underworld? You’d die for the chance to know what I know about J. Edgar. And the Kennedys! They never shut up, I swear to god.”  

                He’d managed to learn how to control ectoplasm about half a year ago, and when he put his arm on hers, not a drop of the slime touched her dress. Everything was going... perfectly for the big day. She took a deep breath and scuffed her pearly white sandals on the grass beneath her feet.

                “This is it. Can you just possess me so I don’t do anything stupid?”

                “Nope.”

                Gilbert walked past her, breaking the rehearsed structure of the ceremony, “I want you to say the vows, dear. No offense, but I wouldn’t marry Austin for a million dollars.”

                “You have terrible financial strategy,” the ghost said, shaking his head.

                Jillian hurriedly pushed her fiancé back inside of Rebecca Gorin’s house, “It’s bad luck for us to see each other before the ceremony!”

                “We work with dead people, that’s literally the epitome of bad luck, dear. I mean, maybe winning the popular vote but losing the election is worse. But we’re still up there.”

                “Out! Out!”

                Gilbert laughed like a maniac as she tucked the bouquet into her bun, smoothing out her suit and skipping down to where Abby and Patty were waiting. Jillian caught one last longing look at her soon to be wife and turned to her best friend. A cool afternoon breeze flowed through the air, carrying tree seeds with it, and she stepped into the sunlight to warm up.

                “For over a decade, I didn’t think I’d be marrying a woman,” she confessed to Austin. “I didn’t think I’d be marrying anyone.”

                “Well that’s why no one leaves you in charge of anything, Holtz. You’re an idiot.”

                “ At least I’m a _living_ idiot.”

                “Low blow,” Austin scoffed. “But you can’t traverse various planes of existence, can you?”

                Jillian nervously shivered, “Actually, I’m screaming into the void at this very moment. What if she backs out? What if I back out?!”

                “Oh my god, just go marry her already! This is ridiculous! I might actually have to haunt you if you don’t get your ass in motion.”

                Jillian shook her head with a chuckle and walked towards the start of the aisle. Eventually the time came to walk, and she felt anything but nervous. Especially when, instead of Erin Gilbert wearing a tux and fiddling with her bouquet at the end of the walkway, she just saw a curious scientist wearing a lab coat and overalls and Canadian headbands— precisely seven pencils sticking out of her various pockets and at least one reptile perched on her shoulder. She saw a woman who didn’t care what the world thought of her, and for a few moments... Jillian didn’t care, either. So, she reached down and grabbed the object she’d been hiding in the pocket of her dress. Everyone’s laughter interrupted the officiate at the silliness of the look, yet Erin’s grin shined brightly as Jillian perched the yellow glasses on her nose.

                Jillian Holtzmann was learning to be unique, and she would remain eternally grateful for her bizarre, enthusiastic bisexual wife from outer space.   

               

                

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, that's a wrap! Went for nineteen chapters instead of twenty just cause I thought that was a happy place to end. I had a lot of fun writing this story, and I hope you really enjoyed it! Let me know what you thought!
> 
> Future projects? I'm actually looking for multiple Holtzbert authors who want to coordinate something big? If you're interested, message me on Tumblr and we'll form a cool kids group! I really want to write this plot with other people!
> 
> A big special unending thank you to Rootproxy for drawing everything in this fic (you wonderful rascal, you).

**Author's Note:**

> Comments!!! I love them??? Leave them please!!
> 
> You're doing so amazing! You are so awesome! If you need someone to talk to, message me at ziraseal.tumblr.com! My door is always open!


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